Halo: The Arbiter
by Peptuck
Summary: A Commander is judged for heresy, a soldier is honored for heroism, a Prophet weaves his own designs, and a darker will listens silently, biding its time as it lurks in the shadows of the Forerunners' legacy. A novelization of Halo 2.
1. Prologue: The Heretic

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_**Halo: The Arbiter **_

_**A Novelization of Halo 2**_

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_**Prologue: The Heretic**_

**Covenant Holy City High Charity/Ninth Age of Reclamation**

A towering mountain of white-furred beast stood in the center of the wide chamber, heavy arms crossed over his burly chest. His eyes, burning crimson pits that glowed in the relatively dim light of the vast chamber, regarded the figures filing past on either side of him with open contempt. He watched in amused silence as the three hundred Elite Protectors, the High Prophet of Truth's personal bodyguard, resplendent in their shimmering red-orange helmets and decorated armor, shuffled past. Every one of the Sangheili gave a silent glare at the Jiralhanae as he towered over them, and his stare challenged them to take action against him. Here he stood, a mere _Brute_ as they would call him, having a personal audience with the High Prophet of Truth himself, the greatest source of truth and knowledge in the entire width and breadth of the Covenant Empire. The notion that he, Tartarus, of all creatures, was speaking words with the Prophet that they, his trusted legion, were not allowed to hear, was driving the Honor Guard to madness.

Tartarus savored their hate, tasting it and rolling it about in his jaws like freshly seared Kig'Yar meat, ripe off the bone. He reveled in their hatred and anger and helplessness, and he could sense their quiet shame and the distant, subtle feeling that they were not being considered worthy, that they were dishonoring their ancestors.

After all, it was they, the Sangheili, the iron heart of the Covenant, who had allowed a _human,_ of all things, to destroy Halo.

_You sense it, do you not? Your race has begun the slow, inevitable slide that began when we joined the Covenant. You, who have defended the Prophets and led the Covenant armies and navies for thousands of years, undone by a pack of mere Brutes. Undone by _me.

Tartarus managed a slight, quiet chuckle, his deep voice resonating across the chamber. The last of the Protectors paused, looking back at the Brute Chieftain as if he was poised to crush the Hierarch himself with his mighty gravity hammer. The Brute refused to grace the Protector with any response, and he knew that the Sangheili was silently savoring the image of running him through with his guard pike.

Finally, after several seconds, the door leading out of the chamber sealed shut, and Tartarus lowered his arms. He calmly strode across the chamber toward the figure that floated before the vast glass mural, formed of the shards of the countless worlds the Covenant had purified with their holy fire. As he neared the Hierarch, he slowly dropped to one knee, kneeling and bowing his head.

"You have summoned me, Truth?" he asked, his deep voice in a low baritone that would have vibrated the glass beyond the Prophet, if his volume was but a little higher.

Slowly, the Prophet rotated his hovering throne, coming about to face the Brute Chieftain as he kneeled. The diminutive, long-necked creature observed Tartarus for several long moments, calmly stroking the fleshy growth beneath his chin with slender, stick-like fingers.

Tartarus managed a tight smile. If he had called Truth by that name in the presence of any other Covenant, even his fellow Brutes, there would have been an infuriated uproar. If the Protectors could hear him speak as such, they would have ignited their blades and sliced him to pieces in an instant.

But yet, Tartarus, Chieftain of the Jiralhanae, did indeed speak with the most powerful creature in the galaxy so candidly, and the power that signified was absolutely _delicious._

"Yes, Tartarus, I have," replied the Prophet quietly. "Rise. There are no Protectors present." Tartarus slowly stood, coming to his full height, which left him face to face with the Prophet of Truth as he hovered in his throne. One of the advantages of such a device; no one would look down upon a Prophet seated within one.

"Tell me, Tartarus, have the pilots been executed?" the Prophet asked, and the Brute nodded, a tight, satisfied grin upon his face.

"There was a tragic breach in the hull of their ship, while they were all gathered in a briefing room," Tartarus stated. "It was quick and quiet, just as you ordered."

"Excellent," Truth replied. "You are indeed a testament to your race's unusual subtlety and intellect." Tartarus rose up slightly, fur bristling with pride. Of course, he knew that the Prophet was partially appealing to his ego. But he also knew there was truth in Truth's words; the Prophet needed him, precisely for his exceptional intellect and cunning. Though huge and savage, he was far wiser and much more learned than most Sangheili would dare imagine.

"Tell me, Tartarus, how do your warriors fare?" Truth asked, turning and floating across the chamber, looking up absently at the glass mural.

"They hunger for more battle," the Brute answered immediately. "They have yet to challenge the humans, to prove their worth in war with them. They are furious that the Sangheili lead all the charges, and none of my soldiers actively fight in our crusade."

"You long to test your might," Truth mused. "But tell me this . . . have you seen the sensor analysis of the debacle regarding the _Unyielding Hierophant_?" Tartarus paused, and quietly shook his head.

"No."

Truth turned back toward the Brute, and Tartarus saw a subtle smile spread upon the Prophet's face. It was one he had seen before, one that signified that the small but wily creature possessed an advantage that no one else knew of. It was a smile that sent unease through the huge Brute's thoughts, as it was a smile directed at _him._

"There was a catastrophic failure in the power core of the station. Tell me, Tartarus, who was tasked with defending the temples that gave access to the sacred Forerunner technology that _powered_ that station?"

"My warriors," Tartarus answered stiffly.

"Perhaps the blame for the _Unyielding Hierophant's_ death and the destruction of almost the entire fleet should fall upon the shoulders of the Jiralhanae," Truth mused, turning away. "Perhaps then the Sangheili will recover some of their pride, and your kind will be shunted to the side. Relegated to guard duty, if your kind can even be trusted with that sad fate, while even the Unggoy see the honor of duty on the front lines."

"We shall not fail you again!" Tartarus declared with tremendous force, his words shaking the glass mural that Truth was studying. The Prophet turned again toward the Brute, and quietly nodded.

"All is proceeding as we intended, though the loss of Halo has set back our plans." The Prophet sighed. "The artifact we recovered at the human world of Sigma Octanus showed us much, but it only possessed a map to one Halo. And the Holy Light at the human world of Reach has been broken, and only part of it in our hands."

"The Great Journey will not be postponed," Tartarus stated. "Give the duty of hunting the artifacts to my warriors! We shall track them down and take possession without failure!"

"You kind is noted for its tracking skills," Truth replied calmly, placatingly. "But this is no live quarry we hunt. It is the most elusive of artifacts, the key to the Great Journey itself. There are other Halos we may find, but I must state with much regret that the humans have delayed us substantially."

"We shall smite them with our holy vengeance," Tartarus stated, and Truth nodded.

"But we must have patience, Tartarus." Truth gestured into the air, a wide waving motion that seemed to take in the entire galaxy. "There is much work that is yet to be done. And, sadly, I fear that noble Regret may yet impede our progress."

"Yes, I have heard," Tartarus replied. "The Prophet of Regret has taken what was left of the _Hierophant's_ grand fleet and continued onward with no further escort, into the heart of human space."

"He has great will and conviction," Truth conceded. "But no sense of caution. He is rash and bold. He may end up digging a grave for himself." Truth paused, and then looked to Tartarus. "But enough of this. I have called you here not to prattle, but for a task."

"Name it," Tartarus stated.

"The one who has lost Halo and the Ascendant Justice is to stand trial and answer for his failure in one cycle. The entire Council shall be convened, Prophets and Sangheili. You will be present, and when he is found guilty, you will carry out his sentence."

"He is guilty?" Tartarus asked, confused. "So, you have not even bothered to call the High Council for an inquiry?"

"I do not need to," answered Truth, sitting back in his chair. "Whether he likes it or not, the one who lost Halo has an important destiny before him. He shall be found guilty, he shall be punished, and he shall walk the path few have walked." Truth looked up to Tartarus, and that terrible sneer came back onto his face.

"And when the time comes, he shall _die_."

* * *

Fleet Master Tano 'Inanraree could barely control the trembling of his hands as they clenched together tightly. His eyes remained fixed, unblinking, and his mouthparts twitched as he stared at the holographic display. As his ship, the Reverence-class cruiser _Incorruptible_ pulsed across the void of space, it floated past a glowing, burning mass of concave metal and stone a thousand times its mass. The cruiser's shields flickered as tiny pieces of the wreckage - pieces as large as a full-sized dropship or troop transport - bounced off the barrier, and the Ship Master could do nothing but stare. 

He'd seen the reports, and had watched the live video feed from the _Ascendant Justice_ as it had witnessed the final moments, but it was still nothing compared to viewing the remains of the holy artifact in person.

The Forerunner-constructed Halo. The sacred artifact of legend, the holy ring that was destined to lead their entire civilization to salvation with its divine, cleansing light, was broken and shattered, fractured into millions of pieces of twisted metal and rock, stretching across the skies of the gas giant of Threshold, rendered asunder by the filth that was the _humans._

"Un . . ." he began to whisper. "_Unforgivable!_"

Behind him, the rest of his bridge crew remained silent; they, too, were frozen in awe and horrified fascination as the weight of the humans' desecration fell upon them. The ultimate construction of the ancient Forerunner was broken before them, the very salvation that the covenant had been seeking for millennia, lost. Within each of the Sangheili, rage began to well up as they stared at the ruined world, and they too began to harbor similar feelings. The humans were already being destroyed for their transgressions, standing in the path of their righteous crusade to begin the Great Journey. But now there was only white-hot fury at the vermin that had destroyed their chance at salvation.

"There will be no mercy!" snarled Tano as he turned on his bridge crew. "None shall avoid his part in this desecration!" Roars and rumbles of agreement filled the bridge as the other Sangheili voiced their thoughts, and the dull rumble of the two massive Lekgolo guards at the entrance to the chamber filled the air.

Tano turned back toward the holographic display, and eyed what waited beyond the wreckage of the sacred ring. Floating in the space beyond the ruins of Halo, framed by the orange clouds of Threshold, was the Covenant Holy City of High Charity, drifting serenely among the ruins. Thousands of motes of light flowed alongside it, and from this distance, one would not think that they were the massive supercarriers and cruisers of the _Second Fleet of Homogenous Charity_, the Holy City's escort. High Charity itself vastly overshadowed its escorts, consisting of a tremendous dome of gray and silver metal, with untold kilometers of intricate carvings and delicate designs engraved into its hull, amidst the vast arrays of external structures, docking bays, and weapons systems bristling from its hull. Beneath the dome, a vast array of spires and towers stretched and descended, housing the immense power and life support systems to sustain the city contained within.

Tano snarled as he looked at the city, and tapped a holographic light. The display changed, to a feed that his cruiser was receiving from inside the Holy City, transmitted from the heart of the Covenant's government in the Grand Council Chamber.

"None shall escape his part in this blasphemy," Ship Master Tano snarled. "Neither human _nor_ Covenant."

* * *

The Grand Council Chamber. It was in this hallowed room that the High Council, the ruling body of the Covenant, convened to discuss matters. There were other, lesser councils, who had longer, florid names and more specific duties, but none of the them were _the _High Council. The High Council needed no qualifiers, it required no embellishments or extensions of its name to give it further purpose. There was no body within the Covenant more powerful than the High Council, and the three Prophet Hierarchs who stood over and led it. 

The Grand Council Chamber was where the Council made its greatest decisions and where the most critical and momentous announcements were made. It was here that the Prophets had declared their crusade against the human species. It was here that the Prophet Truth had announced the discovery of the sacred ringworld of Halo. And it was here that the horrid news of Halo's destruction had been released to the masses.

And once again, the Council was gathered in this room at another momentous occasion: to hear the account and the sentencing of the one who had failed to protect the sacred ring, whose incompetence had lost him half his fleet and his own flagship at the hands of the vile vermin.

He stood upon the central dais, raised up to an Unggoy's height above the floor. The shining white light that poured down from above the vast hall was reflected in his polished golden armor, the glare distorting his image as he stared ahead, unflinchingly, at the trio of Prophet Hierarchs. The white light and the glowing armor was a stark contrast to the dark, muted purples that made up the rest of the chamber's walls, floors, ceilings, and the seats the Councilors sat upon. To the figure's right sat the thirty Sangheili Councilors, tasked with operating the vast military arms of the Covenant Empire, resplendent in their spotless silver armor and high helmets. To his left sat the thirty Prophet Councilors, tasked with overseeing the religious and civil affairs of the Covenant, clad in their carmine robes. Within their high seats, far above his head, they looked down upon the one who had failed to protect Halo. Off to the side, to the right of the Prophet Hierarchs, stood the white-furred form of Tartarus, Chieftain of the Jiralhanae, with his arms crossed and watching the entire show with an amused grin. Flanking the approach to the dais were a half dozen Sangheili Protectors, pikes in hand and the glowing red-orange plates on their forearms, thighs, and ornate helmets clashing with the muted purples and the gleaming gold of the one who was on trial.

That was the whole point behind this hearing; the Supreme Commander of the _Fleet of Particular Justice_ had been in command of the forces that had been defending Halo when it had been destroyed. His thousands of ground troops and dozens of surviving ships had been bested by a scant few hundred human soldiers and a lone, aged cruiser that by all rights shouldn't have even had a tenth of the armaments it carried. And then, to add to the insult, after Halo's destruction, the one responsible - the _Demon -_ had escaped, boarded one of his command ships, and had captured it and then used it to destroy a vast armada and the support station _Unyielding Hierophant_.

The Supreme Commander knew that what had happened at Halo was his fault. Through his own weakness, the vermin had destroyed the sacred ring and stolen his ship, and he was shamed with immeasurable failure. He was severed from his family, and his name had been stripped from him. Even now, he was only being tried to show his disgrace to the rest of the Covenant, so they would see him and scorn him for his weakness.

"Tell me, Supreme Commander," stated the elderly Prophet Hierarch on the right, a wizened figure whose brown skin had become a pale, pinkish-brown shade in his old age. "How many of the human ships managed to escape to Halo? I am most curious about the space battle prior to their landing on the sacred ring."

The Prophets clearly knew all of this information ahead of time, but they were asking him once more, in order to show his failure as completely as possible to the vast billions that were watching this hearing.

"There was only one ship," he admitted. The Supreme Commander closed his eyes as he recalled seeing that one insignificant cruiser escaping the battle above the human world of Reach. Had he known what that ship carried or where it had been headed, he would not have merely dispatched a small strike force of frigates to pursue at first.

"They called it . . . The _'Pillar of Autumn'_."

"Why was it not destroyed with the rest of their fleet?" Hod Rumnt, the ancient High Prophet of Mercy demanded, his shrill, aged voice taking on angry overtones as he waved a bony hand in the Commander's direction.

"It fled," he answered. "As we set fire to their planet. But I followed with all the ships in my command the moment I knew where it was destined."

The Hierarch to his left floated forward, or rather, his image did. The High Prophet of Regret was far away, spearheading the push deeper into human space, and was not available in person. However, his holographic image did well to show the displeasure on his dark brown face, and his youthful voice cut into the Sangheili like the hot edge of an energy sword.

"When you first saw Halo," he asked, his words dripping with biting sarcasm, "Were you . . . _blinded_ by its majesty?"

"Blinded?" asked the Commander, uncertain as to what the Prophet was getting at.

"Paralyzed?" the Prophet demanded, each word more vicious and biting than the last. "_Dumbstruck?_"

"No," responded the Commander, standing tall, fixing his gaze into that of the Prophet before him.

"Yet . . ." the Hierarch said, scratching his chin-growths, seemingly puzzled by something. "The humans . . . were able to evade your ships . . . land on the sacred ring . . . and _desecrate_ it with their _filthy footsteps!_ Pray tell me, _Commander_-" the rank was delivered with a biting edge, as if through speaking that one word alone, Regret was trying to condemn him "-how far does your incompetence reach? A single human cruiser, damaged, exhausted, ancient and weak, against over a dozen of your frigates, destroyers, and cruisers, and it not only remained intact, but it was able to crash upon the ring's surface and let its human filth walk upon the holy works of the Forerunners!"

The words that Regret were speaking made the Commander's blood boil with frustration. He had had no control over that engagement; Ship Master Orna 'Fulsamee's destroyer had been the first to engage the human ship, and the Prophet on board had forbade the use of plasma torpedoes to annihilate the vessel, instead commanding boarding craft to assault the ship. Even he, a Supreme Commander, had not been able to countermand the Prophet's idiotic commands, and the Pillar of Autumn was able to crash onto the ring's surface and the humans were able to take root on Halo.

And after they were on the ring, the Covenant search teams had uncovered what lay deep within the surface of the ringworld, and that subsequent disaster had, ultimately, spelled doom for the entire sacred ring.

"Noble Hierarchs," he attempted to explain. "Surely you understand that once the _Parasite_ attacked-"

_That_ did not go over well with the rest of The Council. Several of the Sangheili Councilors began speaking to one another, shaking their heads or nodding as they considered the Flood's presence, but the Prophets began to shout and argue loudly among themselves. The cascade of voices filled the vast chamber, echoing off the walls. Mercy immediately shouted, his voice amplified by his throne's voice enhancer.

"There will be order in this Council!" he shouted, slamming his hand down on the armrest of his chair, rocking it slightly. As he spoke, the other Councilors started to quiet, and then, all went instantly silent as two hands were raised, and the High Prophet of Truth, who had been sitting behind the other two Hierarchs, came forward to address the Commander personally. The chamber was filled with silence as all waited to hear the Prophet's words.

"You were right to focus your attention on the Flood, Commander," he stated in his even, calm voice. "But . . . this Demon, this 'Master Chief' . . . ." His words were like an island of calm, dispelling the tense emotions in the chamber beneath his soothing tone. He seemed powerful, sympathetic, wise, reasonable, and collected, all at once.

The Commander closed his eyes again, and in his mind's eye, the destruction of Halo. The loss of their only hope for salvation, under his own stewardship.

"By the time I learned the Demon's intent," the Commander stated in a low, subdued voice. "There was nothing I could do."

The entire Council responded, Prophets and Sangheili, shouting violently, waving their fists angrily. Even so, the Prophets seemed the most animated again, several hopping up and down, snake-like necks craning and twisting.

Before the dais, the white-furred Jiralhanae Chieftain, Tartarus, managed a dark, amused chuckle to himself, his deep, chortling voice providing a shadowy undertone to the angry shouts and arguments. The huge creature seemed to be enjoying every second of the display. Beyond him, Regret's hologram floated close to Truth, and he whispered in hushed, impatient tones to his fellow Hierarch.

"Noble Truth, this has gone on long enough. The entire Covenant knows enough to gut this one by now! Make an example of this bungler!"

"There will be order!" Mercy shouted angrily while Truth was listening to Regret's advice, and the Council began to quiet. Once again, they fell deathly silent when the Prophet of Truth raised his hands.

The Prophet's eyes fixed the Commander's, and the Sangheili knew what he would speak an instant before it was said.

"You are one of our most treasured instruments," he began. "A Zealot worthy of your armor, a fleet commander who has led his charges with honor and distinction, and a warrior who has slain thousands of foes. But . . . ."

The chamber went deathly silent.

"Your inability to protect Halo . . . was a _colossal_ failure."

"Nay!" came a sudden shout from the Prophet section of the chamber, and all turned their attention to the speaker. "It was . . . _heresy!_"

If the mention of the Flood and the Demon had angered The Council and sent tempers flaring, the mention of that word practically ignited the entire chamber. Sangheili and Prophets stood up, shouting at the top of their lungs, arguing and calling and cursing.

The Commander listened to their shouts for several long moments, and a surge of defiance shot through him at his helplessness. They were through questioning him and had gone straight to sentencing; the entire charade was over. He took a step forward on the dais, glaring at the Prophets who were condemning him with a fire and a resolve that instantly silenced the entire chamber faster than Truth's raised hands.

"I will _continue_ my campaign against the humans!" he declared, with such force that it made several of the standing Prophets sit back down and sent quiet chortles through the Sangheili ranks.

"No," Truth responded immediately, undaunted by the Commander's words and tone. His voice was calm and even as always, but it carried a weight of power behind it that made even the defiant Sangheili stop in his tracks. "You will _not_." The slightest flick of his hand followed those words.

At that, Tartarus barked a sudden command, and his two Brute escorts stepped forward, around the dais, and toward the Supreme Commander. Complete disgust at the thought of being handled by such beasts as these hairy creatures erupted through the Sangheili's mind. As they reached for his arms, he shook his whole body and turned, glaring at one of the Brutes with such force that it took a step backward in shocked fear. Its comrade, spooked by the sudden motion, did so as well.

The Commander turned away from the Prophet of Truth and started walking away, understanding the dismissal in his words as he passed between the impassive stares of the Protectors.

"Soon the Great Journey shall begin," the Prophet stated quietly. "But when it does, the weight of your heresy will stay your feet . . . ."

With Tartarus and the two Brutes flanking him, the Commander stalked out of the chamber, but Truth's words echoed over and over in his head in the corridors beyond.

" . . . and you shall be left behind."

* * *

-

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This is an idea that I had rolling around in my head for a while. I'm a huge Halo fan, and I've been wanting to write Halo fanfiction for a good long time now, but I just didn't want to write anything that I felt would have been contradicted by upcoming Halo media. Well, _Halo: Ghosts of Onyx_ is out now, and I figured that now would be as good a time as any to get to cracking on this kind of concept. I've done plenty of work in other areas, mostly Final Fantasy, and I figured it would be a pleasant break to work on something outside of the fantasy genre and work my way into pure sci-fi/military matters.

And as anyone who's read my stuff knows, I'm a sucker for writing novelizations of existing media. There's already an official Halo: Combat Evolved novelization out there, but I wanted to throw myself into the idea and try a shot of my own with something that hasn't been released yet: Halo 2.

I'm not sure how this is going to progress, considering I've got a whole lot of other material on hand I'm working on, but at the very least, I wanted to get this prologue out there for the reading. Tell me what you think!

Until first chapter . . . .


	2. Chapter I: Cairo Station

_Chapter I: Cairo Station_

October 20, 2552/Cairo Defense Platform/Earth Orbit

Master Gunnery Sergeant Mike Hanes was not a particularly huge, imposing, or powerful figure, but he had that no-nonsense air about him that told anyone who entered his armory to shut up, listen, and do what the hell he told them to do. Thirty years in the UNSC Marine Corps had taught him a whole lot about killing, fighting, and discipline, and he understood implicitly the importance of _proper_ discipline, especially when one was up to his ears in devices built for the sole, express purpose of making things bleed, scream, and die - usually, but not always, in that order.

It was this natural adherence to discipline and no-nonsense attitude that had landed him a position on the Cairo Defense Platform, the core command facility for Earth's orbital defense grid. If - or rather, _when_ - the Covenant showed up, this particular station would be coordinating the massive orbital defense of the entire planet. Naturally, that would require a crack force of well-armed Marines to defend said station in the event of Covenant boarders, and therefore would require not only an expert in the maintenance and repair of every small arm in the UNSC arsenal, but one with the discipline and know-how to keep said armory secure and safe. Which was why Master Gunnery Sergeant Mike Hanes was stationed precisely in said armory, speaking with a man who was finishing the repairs on the most advanced piece of UNSC weaponry ever developed, fresh from field testing.

And by "field testing," Hanes meant "fucking up everything in the whole damn suit and making him spend seven hours on the line with some jackass in Songnam to get the replacement parts shipped up to the station."

Hanes sighed as he looked over the burnt-out gear on the table before him. He'd never dealt with this particular Spartan before, and while he seemed nice enough, the man just _did not appreciate_ how rare this equipment was and the trouble a Marine supply officer had to go through to get replacements. At least Maria-062 didn't damn well _destroy_ the gear before testing was finished.

"Jesus Christ on a _fucking_ pogo stick," Hanes muttered as the Spartan calmly stretched out, the pitted iridescent plates in his armor doing little to reflect the dim light in the armory, despite the energy dispersing treatments. "_What the hell _did you do to this damn suit?" Hanes shook his head, looking at his datapad and the reports from the testers and the schematics of the powered armor that the man wore.

"The plating was about to fail, there's viscosity throughout the gel layer," he muttered, and scooped up one of the items on the table, the optical and external sensors mounted in the suit's helmet. "Optics, totally fried." He dropped the ruined sensors and scooped up the miniature fusion power source that went in the backpack just a day ago. "And let's not even talk about the power supply. Do you have any idea how expensive this gear is, son?"

He watched the man before him take the new suit's helmet in his black-gloved, green-armored hands. A fresh shave had shorn off most of his already-short brown hair, and his abnormally pale skin showed through the thinned buzz atop his head. The Spartan slowly slid the helmet over his head, the reflective visor covering up his face behind an impassive, reflective mask of death. The helmet touched the environment seal around the man's neck, and he twisted it slightly. The faintest _hiss-click_ could be heard as the helmet and the seal connected perfectly, and the figure turned his visor toward Hanes.

"Tell that to the Covenant," remarked Master Chief SPARTAN-117.

* * *

As the helmet clicked into place, the MJOLNIR Mark VI's internal systems booted up. Data poured through the optical and crystal pathways within the half ton of ceramic and metal powered armor, and the interior of the Master Chief's visor lit up with an array of displays. 

His eyes flicked over the data as if came onto his HUD. While he had been testing the Mark VI for the last few days, he was still somewhat unused to the new display inside the helmet, with everything rearranged. He attributed the discomfort to having spent twenty-seven years using the older models of the MJOLNIR armor and being accustomed to the previous displays, and dismissed it.

The new armor fit him as perfectly and naturally as his old armor had. That was partially due to the fact that much of the suit he had utilized over the last few months was still being worn, but that a large portion of the electronics, armor, and gear had been replaced and upgraded. Many of the enhancements to his armor had been field tested by either his fellow Spartans at Reach or by Maria in Songnam in the last few weeks. Overall, the improvements to the armor had been sufficient enough that the technicians had upgraded the armor's designation to "MJOLNIR Mark VI".

The Master Chief had gone over the list of improvements; aside from an array of small improvements to the various circuits and a retrofitting of the liquid crystal matrix - which provided an even greater strength enhancement than the Mark V had - the armor featured a vastly improved motion and threat tracker, enhanced targeting and image magnification systems, and a linear accelerator to the shield system. The shield tech itself had been dramatically improved, with UNSC engineers finally fabricating their own technology into the armor, and not relying on the rigged Covenant shield technology they had used in the older models. The improved human shields were not only much stronger, they also recharged a lot faster.

The neural connection between the Spartan and his armor was also enhanced, enabling him to perform and strategize complex actions visually against his display. While he had been able to do so before, coordinating his actions with fellow Spartans and Marines, he now had almost intuitive control over data displays and maps, enabling him to highlight and assign objectives, threats, and routes on the fly, as fast as his lightning-quick mind could process.

Hanes led the Master Chief through the necessary tests, ensuring his targeting and visual systems were calibrated properly, and moving on to the shield test station. Hanes brought the shields up and forcibly disabled them with a pulse of energy, and the Chief noted with a degree of satisfaction that the pulse used to disable them was a lot more powerful than it had been in previous tests. Additionally, the shields recharged within a couple of seconds, far faster than they had in his older armor. That would be much more useful against the Covenant . . . .

As the Master Chief watched his shield gauge recharge to full, the heavy cargo elevator leading out of Hanes' armory slid open, and out stepped a Marine clad in a spotless white dress uniform, his black mustache neatly trimmed and barely visible against his nearly as-dark skin. Sergeant Major Avery J. Johnson managed a grin as he stepped into the armory, his garrison cover resting atop his head and almost gleaming in the dim light.

"You almost done with my boy here, Master Guns?" Johnson called, and Hanes grunted. "I don't see any training wheels . . . ."

"His armor's workin' fine, Johnson, so shut your chili-hole," Hanes barked. He glanced back at the Chief and hit a few buttons on his terminal. "You're free to go, son. Just remember to take things slow. Don't want to blow out that damn fusion core again."

"Don't worry," Johnson added. "I'll hold his hand."

The Master Chief mentally checked the current time – and noted that his suit's internal clock was already synched up with UNSC standard time – and noted that they had less than ten minutes before the awards ceremony on the Cairo's command deck. Inwardly, John grunted unhappily. He'd attended dozens such ceremonies before, and in the last few years they'd become massive media events; ONI Section Two loved using Spartan medal ceremonies as huge morale boosters. The Chief would have preferred to sit them out; any medal they heaped upon him would simply be redundant, as he'd received all of them outside the Prisoner of War Medal. But humanity needed the morale boost, so he would have to go. At least Johnson had promised that there wouldn't be any cameras.

"So, Johnson," Hanes called behind the Chief as the pair boarded the lift. "When you gonna tell me how you got back home in one piece? I haven't heard the details about what happened after Reach."

"Sorry, Guns," Johnson replied. "It's classified. You know how it is."

"My _ass_!" Hanes barked angrily as the doors slid shut. "Go on, keep it to yourself! You can forget those adjustments to your A2's scope! And don't think I'll-" Whatever else Hanes was about to say was carried away as the elevator rose up to the next level, with Johnson chuckling to himself.

"Well, he's in a particularly fine mood," the Marine remarked to the Spartan beside him as the elevator stopped and opened up, revealing a station-wide tram terminal before them, with a tram car ready to move. "Maybe Lord Hood didn't give him an invitation."

The two soldiers walked forward, onto the tram car, and the doors slid shut behind them automatically. It started moving, but the Master Chief didn't pay any immediate attention to the sudden bit of motion. Rather, his eyes were fixed forward, out the other side of the tram car's windows, looking across the panoramic view of space, and the world that slowly drifted beneath the Cairo platform.

"Earth," Sergeant Johnson remarked. "Haven't seen it in years."

John said nothing at first, instead simply looking down upon the planet beneath him. He had seen sophisticated holograms of it before, had read numerous reports and stories, and understood the geography and history of the planet as well as any high-ranking officer in the UNSC, but that still didn't compare to actually _seeing_ the planet beneath him. In the twenty-seven years he had been battling the Covenant, John had never actually been inside Earth's space, and had never seen the planet itself, in person, before a month ago. The first time he had ever viewed the world was after returning aboard the battered frigate _Gettysburg._

A clever poet or writer would remark on the irony of a man who had spent most of his life fighting for the defense of a planet he had never seen, but John was neither. He simply looked down upon the planet, one of the few dozen UNSC worlds remaining, and reminded himself, once again, that this planet was what he was charged with the defense of. This world was humanity's homeworld, and it was his mission, and that of his team, to keep the Covenant from burning it just as they had burned every other human world.

"When I shipped out for Basic on Reach, the orbital defense grid was all theory and politics," Johnson was saying, and John turned, glancing at the Marine as the tram car passed into a short tunnel. The Marine turned and pointed out the other side of the car, as it exited the tunnel and a wide viewport exposed the main weapon of the Cairo Defense Platform for both men to see.

"Now look at it," Johnson stated, his voice filled with a mixture of pride, awe, and glee as he and the Spartan looked up at the tremendous magnetic accelerator cannon at the heart of the station, extending up past them by over a kilometer, directed into the depths of space. "The Cairo is just one of three _hundred_ geo-sync platforms. That MAC gun can put a round clean through a Covenant capital ship." Johnson shook his head as he imagined the shocking power such a weapon would have.

The Master Chief remembered the battle over Reach well, and he understood the power that those cannons possessed. Just twenty of them, and a hundred and fifty UNSC warships, had battled and destroyed most of a Covenant fleet of over three hundred ships.

But even those MACs had been unable to completely stop the Covenant onslaught, and when the planet-side generators had been destroyed - generators that many of John's fellow Spartans had fallen defending - the MACs had been left helpless.

Humanity had learned from the mistake they had made that day; the UNSC's High Command had strategically stationed the MAC cannons to defend against an attack from any direction. A hundred three-MAC-station clusters were positioned across the space above the planet, offering interlocking fields of fire that would ensure no Covenant forces would slip past the stations and assault the surface. Or at least not without punching through a withering field of magnetically propelled projectiles moving at a fraction the speed of light.

"With coordinated fire from the Athens and the Malta," Johnson finished, "Nothing is getting past this battle cluster in one piece."

John nodded as the Marine spoke, and he agreed with Johnson's tactical assessment. With sufficient covering fire from other battle clusters and the close-range support of Earth's defense fleet, the MACs would be able to punish any Covenant force that moved at their position.

As the tram continued to move, it passed another station, where two Marines were standing, talking among themselves, each man clad in full body armor and with M7 caseless sub-machineguns slung over their shoulders, ready for combat. The Marines looked like they were trying to be nonchalant, but it was clear that they were feeling jittery, which was understandable. A five-hundred ship Covenant fleet had been prepared to assault Earth just a month ago, only stopped by the combined actions of the remaining Spartans and the valiant self-sacrifice of Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb and Lieutenant Elias Haverson. Yet, even with that victory, the fact remained that the Covenant seemed to have located Earth, and that fact had set the entire defense grid around the planet to constant alert. Every Marine, sailor, and civilian was aware of the danger, and they knew that sooner or later, the Covenant would come to finish the job they had begun with the _Unyielding Hierophant_.

A shadow cut across the station momentarily, and the Master Chief watched a massive warship, a powerful UNSC cruiser, cut past the station, a wedge of Longsword fighters moving ahead of it. A smaller frigate was in formation to the cruiser's port side, both ships moving in a patrol pattern past the battle cluster.

"Ships have been arriving all morning," Johnson commented as he saw the craft fly past. "Nobody's saying much, but I expect something big's about to happen." The Master Chief agreed with Johnson's assessment; the air was tinged with the excited nervousness that characterized those who were expecting an enemy to arrive at any moment.

The tram slid to a halt, and the doors behind the pair of soldiers slid open. The Chief turned, the sudden rush of cheers and clapping hands assaulting his ears, and saw a huge crowd of gathered Marines waiting in the station outside the car. Most of them were clad in armor and fatigues, but a pair in white dress uniform stood at the far end of the station, before the nondescript double door that led into the Cairo's command center.

The Marines gave way as the Chief and Johnson stepped out of the tram car, the Spartan peering across the cheering and smiling faces of his fellow soldiers. He had grown accustomed to the celebrity treatment he got from the rank and file enlisted forces of the UNSC; the few remaining Spartans were instantly recognizable among normally-equipped soldiers, and their actions had been blown up and expanded by ONI section Two until they were almost absurd. When encountered in the field, Marines reacted with awe and amazement, but when he appeared at functions like these, the Master Chief was mobbed as a hero.

John _hated_ public functions. He just wanted to get back out into the field and do his job.

He caught something on his motion tracker, flitting overhead, and beneath the helmet, he frowned.

"You said there _wouldn't be_ any cameras," John muttered quietly, and his eyes flicked to Johnson as the Marine Sergeant lifted his cover off his head and ran a gloved hand through his closely shaved black hair. The Chief caught a sardonic smile on Johnson's face as he did so, and one of several hovering drone cameras came in close, flitting over the assembled Marines' heads and helmets.

"And you said you were gonna wear something _nice_," the Marine shot back. John didn't respond as he and Johnson walked forward, through the Marine crowd, the cameras dogging their steps. As they moved toward the door and the Marines flanking it, Johnson continued.

"This thing is big, Chief," he explained. "We just lost Reach, and you _know_ what that means. Folks need heroes, Chief, to give 'em hope. You know how close we all are right now to the edge. So, smile, would ya, while we still got something to smile about!"

The doors parted, and the pair of Marines flanking the entrance saluted sharply as the two heroes strode past them, into a cavalcade of additional cheers and clapping. Johnson seemed to be reveling in the treatment, but the Master Chief quietly accessed his suit's audio systems, isolated the incoming cheers and clapping, and muted them.

* * *

"Heretic! Heretic! Heretic!"

Squeaking Unggoy voices filled the air around the Supreme Commander as he strode down the stairs. Behind him, Tartarus' Brute lackeys followed him from the corridor leading to the Grand Council Chamber, and the white-furred Chieftain, chosen to be the 'neutral' administrator of the Prophets' justice, strode beside the condemned Sangheili. Flanking the wide platform that they walked down were hundreds of the lesser Covenant races: squat, fat Unggoy, clad in the environment suits they were required to wear outside their homes, and the taller, slender Kig-Yar, their glowing pink eyes staring unblinkingly as they screeched for vengeance. Separating the path the Commander walked from the masses of zealous, vicious lesser Covenant were the silent, orange and red-clad Honor Guards, staring ahead impassively as the doomed Commander walked before them.

He did not turn to meet the eyes of the lesser Covenant, but instead strode along the long platform, ignoring their shouts and jeers and taunts. Towering pillars rose up past him, hovering over anti-gravity platforms as he advanced toward the end of the huge balcony, one that overlooked the entirety of the interior of High Charity.

The crowds were left behind, and the loud, violent cheers and screeches were replaced by the general din of thousands upon thousands of Covenant screaming and milling about, their intermixed voices rapidly coagulating into a vast wall of noise. He strode to the edge of the platform, and stared out over the vast city stretching before him, occupying the interior of the vast structure of High Charity. Hundreds of square units of space extended out before him, far below the towers in the city's arbitrary "north" district.

"You've drawn quite a crowd," Tartarus remarked, and though the Brute tried to hide it, his own glee leaked into his voice, inciting growing anger in the Commander. The Jiralhanae and the Sangheili were ancient enemies, ever since the Brutes had been inducted into the Covenant, and Tartarus carried that grudge proudly.

"If they came to hear me beg," snarled the Commander, in an attempt to deflate Tartarus' pleasure, "they will be _disappointed._" Tartarus laughed quietly as his Brute lackeys grasped the Commander's wrists and ran them through a pair of glowing blue rings hovering several units above the purple floor.

"Are you sure?" the Chieftain replied as the Commander tugged against the restraints, and found them quite unyielding. Even a massive, armored Lekgolo could not escape the powerful gravity binders holding the Commander in place. The Brute glanced to the side, and nodded to one of his lackeys, who touched a shimmering light console, and as the creatures' finger touched the controls, a deep thrumming filled the air.

The finest, hair-thin tendrils of plasma flowed up into the binders, not enough to be lethal, but certainly enough to blaze flesh and inflict searing agony. The plasma flowed down from the Commander's wrists and over his armor, and he clenched his mandibles together, fighting off the pain as only one as disciplined as a Zealot could do. His eyes remained open as the heat dug into his skin, searing the chrome golden finish off his armor, and he cast his gaze over the crowds below, defying the torture, defying their cheers and taunts, and defying the curses of fate that had put him here.

* * *

The transparent canopy of Cairo Station's main bridge towered overhead, giving John an unimpeded view of the stars above Earth. The vast room itself was filled with consoles and work stations for the soldiers and sailors who crewed this room; it was far larger than the normal command center for a MAC station, due to the fact that it was the forward command center for the entire Earth space defense network. 

Every platform was filled with Marines and Navy crewman in dress uniform, clapping and cheering as the two surviving heroes from the battle at Halo stepped to the front of the bridge, before the vast, transparent display screen that was normally used for combat operations. The gleaming UNSC military logo, of an eagle perched atop a globe, was shining on the screen instead of tactical information.

Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood, clad in his Admiral's dress uniform, stood at the front of the display, and beside him was a line of officers. Among them, John noticed a young woman who couldn't have been out of her thirties, with short black hair: Commander Miranda Keyes, the daughter of Captain Jacob Keyes, who had been his commanding officer during the events at Halo. She was young, too young for her rank, but Miranda possessed the same fiery spirit and tactical brilliance of her father, and the military needed all the competent officers it could get.

"Gentlemen," Hood began with a nod. "We're lucky to have you back. Your actions at Halo have saved the entire human race from extinction; we all owe you our lives." As he spoke, a Lieutenant moved up to the platform and whispered something in the Admiral's ear. He paused, frowning, and glanced to the hologram tank next to the display screen. "Go ahead, Cortana."

The tank glowed for an instant, and a blue mist of light flashed into place above it, before resolving itself into the cool blue transparent form of a young woman, with data streaming up along her body.

"Another whisper, sir, near Io," the AI's holographic avatar replied in a nonchalant female voice. "I have probes en route." Hood nodded, and sighed quietly, before glancing back to Johnson and the Chief.

"I apologize, gentlemen, but we're going to have to make this quick." As he spoke, he moved toward one of the junior officers, who carried a tray draped with blue cloth, upon which were a series of medals. While Hood was retrieving the medals, Cortana glanced over the two soldiers standing at attention, and her avatar's lips curved into a smile.

"You look nice," she commented.

"Thanks," both Johnson and the Master Chief replied, and then glanced at each other, realizing they honestly _weren't_ sure who she was speaking to.

"Sergeant Major," Admiral Hood stated as he moved in front of Johnson, and the Marine went back to attention. Hood lifted the medal in question and moved to pin it on the Marine's chest. "The Colonial Cross is awarded for singular acts of daring and devotion. For a soldier of the United Earth Space Corps -"

* * *

_"-there can be no greater heresy!"_ Tartarus' voice echoed._ "Let him be an example to all who would break our Covenant!"_ Tartarus' voice boomed across the city, amplified and resounding across all of High Charity. 

Rtas 'Vadumee stared down at the display below from atop a balcony several levels above the scene. His black eyes did not blink as he observed his former leader burn under the heat of the searing plasma. There was almost no motion, except for the slight twitch of the two intact mandibles on the right side of his head.

He was a Special Operations Commander, and had seen his fair share of death, pain, and injustice as he had served the Prophets' will. Less than three weeks prior, he had lost an entire file of his best troops, along with his right pair of mandibles, to a Flood infestation, but the pain of that loss was nothing compared to the loss of Halo, and of his salvation. Even so, he did not share the fury that the Council had shown, and he knew his own Commander was being unfairly judged, but such things were the way of the Covenant.

"You disagree with this?" came a voice from behind Rtas, and he turned, lowering his head as the High Prophet of Truth drifted close.

"Yes, Holy One," he responded, and raised his head. "You and I both know that this is unfair."

"Though you _were_ his subordinate, you were his friend," the Prophet mused, moving his throne to the edge of the platform, as the glows from the plasma shapers began to fade. Rtas did not miss the emphasis on "were."

"To destroy one as honored and as mighty as he for the failures of those on the surface and in the void is the height of injustice," Rtas asserted, shaking his head slowly. "Holy One, this is not heresy."

"Perhaps," replied the Prophet, nodding his small head slightly. He turned his black eyes toward Rtas. "But you and I both are aware of the difficulty in controlling a movement as vast as our own. The Unngoy in the methane tent, the Sangheili warrior in the training hall, and the Yanme'e in the hive cluster all desire blood and vengeance. They wish to see one pay for this blasphemy, and since the one _true_ infidel responsible is not here, we must make do with the next best thing."

"The Demon will not escape our vengeance," snarled the Sangheili, clenching his fists, and the Prophet nodded.

"There is another matter that requires your attention, Commander," he stated, and Rtas turned back toward Truth. "We face another potential threat to our already fragile unity."

"Is it the Jiralhanae again?" Rtas demanded, to which Truth shook his head.

"Tartarus' Brutes are being unusually quiet," replied the Prophet. "But no, this has nothing to do with your blood feud, Commander. This has to do with _true_ heresy, a traitor who threatens us _all_."

* * *

"Master Chief Petty Officer," Lord Hood stated as he stood before John. "You have already received this award countless times during your career, but I am pleased to bestow upon you the Colonial Cross once more. Through several of the most brutal battles we've fought in this war, you and your Spartans have shown impossible bravery and tenacity, and through your actions you have saved Earth and humanity three separate times. We all owe you and your fellow Spartans our lives, and it is my honest wish that we had an even greater honor to give you. This medal is for you and all of your fellow Spartans who have fought and bled for the UNSC." 

There was no way to pin the medal onto John's impervious MJOLNIR armor, so instead, Admiral Hood had simply handed him the Colonial Cross he had earned. He took the medal in his hand and lowered it to his side, and said nothing.

This was not just for him, but for all of his fellow Spartans who had died in the war; James, Rene, Kirk, Grace, Anton, Lee, Kurt, and dozens more who had burned on Reach. His family.

As John finished receiving his medal, Commander Keyes broke away from her position and walked forward, to stand beside the Master Chief, before about-facing and coming to attention before Admiral Hood.

"Commander Miranda Keyes," he stated, and his voice was edged with a slight degree of sympathy as he reached forward and placed the Colonial Cross in her hands. "Your father's actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service. His bravery in the face of impossible odds reflects great credit upon himself and the UNSC. The Navy has lost one of its best."

Miranda looked down to the medal and slowly nodded, stilling her expression and attempting to retain military discipline. John remained silent, remembering the last words he had heard from her father before he had been consumed by the Flood parasite, and recalling that final moment where he had to destroy Captain Keyes' remains to recover his neural lace. The man had won multiple battles against the Covenant despite insurmountable odds, and had died a hero.

Lord Hood was right; the Navy had lost one of the finest in its history.

* * *

The pain stretched across his body as he slumped in the unyielding grasp of the gravity binders. His legs had given out halfway through the torture, and the Brutes had gleefully begun to tear the armor off his body, the blackened metal clattering to the metal at their feet. 

As his body drooped, the Commander looked up, hearing the hiss and click of a device sliding up into place. He recognized the sound, and knew what to expect from having seen this same treatment administered to others who had failed. Tartarus' meaty left arm reached down and grasped the haft of a long metal rod and pulled it out of a slot in the floor, the end angled toward the Commander. He looked down at the rod and the end of the device, upon which gleamed the yellow-hot insignia of the Mark of Shame, that which was branded onto the worst of the Covenant's criminals.

To think that he would bear such a mark . . . .

Tartarus stalked forward, grasping the rod in both hands, a dark smile spreading across his face as he reached back. The Commander steeled himself as the rod shot forward, the Mark stabbing into his chest and searing into his flesh. The blazing hot skin peeled away as the mark buried into his torso, and the sizzle of burning flesh filled the Commander's ears. Pain arced through his body as the mark cut and burned into his torso, and though he clenched his teeth and fought against it, he could not hold back the pain.

His head arced back, and single woeful cry of pain escaped his mandibles before darkness claimed his wrecked body.

* * *

Klaxons sounded across the bridge, and the ceremony came to an abrupt halt as the assembled officers looked up. 

"Slipspace ruptures, directly off our battle cluster!" Cortana reported.

"Show me," Hood ordered grimly as the officers and soldiers immediately moved toward their stations, the awards ceremony completely forgotten. Cortana paused, concentrating, and the display shifted to show a map of the orbital defense network. A blob of red dots appeared on the screen, just outside the effective firing ranges of the MAC stations.

"Fifteen Covenant capital ships," Cortana reported. "Holding position just outside the killzone."

Fifteen? John frowned behind his visor. There were only fifteen Covenant ships? Even with their massive technological advantage, fifteen ships were far too many, especially if the Covenant were expecting to attack Earth.

On the display, a mass of UNSC ships, frigates and cruisers, shifted direction and started toward the vastly smaller Covenant fleet.

_"Cairo Station, this is Fleet Admiral Harper,"_ came a call over the bridge's radio._ "We are moving to engage the enemy."_

"Negative, Admiral!" Hood commanded, as he looked over the Covenant fleet. Cortana had begun to resolve the enemy formations, and it became clear that the Covenant fleet consisted of two heavy assault carriers and thirteen cruisers. Hood had seen cruisers in action before; at Sigma Octanus, a battered Covenant force of eight ships, four of them cruisers, had decimated a UNSC fleet of forty-eight fresh, battle-ready ships with crack crews. Their five plasma torpedo turrets, plasma projector cannons, point defense lasers, and energy shields allowed them to massacre much larger numbers of UNSC warships with ease. Though Harper's force had the overwhelming numerical advantage, he was not going to sacrifice thousands of crewmen needlessly.

"Pull your fleet back and form a defensive perimeter around the MAC cluster. I am not going to let these bastards undercut us and hit the MACs." It would be just like the Covenant to send a distraction force to draw out the fleet and then jump an armada of ships in close to the MAC stations. It had happened at Reach, and it could happen here too.

"Commander, get back to your ship," Hood added, glancing to Miranda. "Link up with the rest of the fleet."

"Aye sir!" she replied, saluting, and started to move off as Hood turned to Cortana's avatar.

"You have the MAC gun, Cortana," Hood continued. "As soon as they come in range, open up."

"Gladly," Cortana replied, and her image vanished. Hood turned his eyes back up toward the Covenant fleet, and frowned.

"Something's not right," he muttered. "The fleet that glassed Reach was fifty times this size." In his mind, this simply confirmed Hood's suspicions of a distraction force to draw them out.

"Additional contacts!" came a shout from one of the bridge officers. "Perimeter scouts have incoming boarding craft with Seraph escorts, and lots of them!"

"Patch me through to Admiral Harper!" Hood shouted. "I need him to vector all of his Longswords to engage those boarding craft!" He turned to the Master Chief and Johnson. "They're going to try to board us, take our MAC guns offline and give their capital ships a straight shot at Earth. Master Chief, Sergeant Major, defend this station!"

"Yes sir!" both the Spartan and Marine replied, and the Chief glanced to Johnson.

"I need a weapon," he stated, and the Marine flashed a white-toothed grin.

"Right this way," he replied. "Let's give those Covenant bastards something to pray about!"

The Master Chief wholeheartedly agreed, and he followed Johnson as they moved outside onto the entry platform, just as the tram car moved away, shuttling a squad of Marines to another part of the station. Another group of Marines could be heard moving down a nearby flight of stairs, and John's enhanced hearing could pick out the loading and cocking of rifles and sub-machineguns. Through the open transparisteel windows, John could spot multiple UNSC warships, cruisers and frigates, moving into position around the MAC cluster, angling themselves so that their point defense cannons could pick off approaching boarding craft, but he paid them no mind. He couldn't do anything in a space battle, but if the Covenant boarded this station . . . .

He moved down the stairs after the Marines, pausing at a weapons rack on the wall. Two M7 sub-machineguns and a pair of BR55 Battle Rifles were still mounted on the rack, and the device scanned his neural lace's IFF tag as he approached. Identifying him as a friendly, the locking bar over the weapons slid upward, and John quickly grabbed a sub-machinegun and battle rifle, and several magazines for each. He rapidly checked the two weapons as he moved the rest of the way down the stairs, even as his armor's systems synchronized with the embedded electronics in the weapons. A sight appeared on his HUD as he shouldered the battle rifle, and with a thought, a small compartment opened on his left thigh, revealing a compact holster for a sidearm. He slid the M7 into the holster and moved after Johnson and the Marines.

A full squad of armored soldiers awaited in the passage beneath the stairs, in an impromptu armory, the corridor filled with weapons crates and lined with freshly loaded and cleaned assault rifles, shotguns, and sub-machineguns. Several Marines and Naval crewmen, still in their dress whites, were hastily strapping on body armor and netting, and grabbing grenades and weapons. The Master Chief joined them, grabbing a standard-issue M6C magnum sidearm from atop an ammunition crate, and checking the weapon, before holstering it opposite his M7. Johnson, for his part, had slung a rifle over his back and was hefting a M247 light machinegun, complete with mount, on his right shoulder, and was using his other arm to affix a headset to his left ear. He tapped the side of the earpiece as flashes of light could be seen outside the station - Covenant boarding craft and their escorts were already in range of the fleet's point defense weapons.

"Cortana, patch us into FLEETCOM," he began, even as John did the same with his suit's radio. A moment later, his frequency lights lit up as he was linked up with the rest of the local fleet nearby. John called up a station schematic and overlaid it onto his HUD, mentally connecting to the _Cairo's _sensors - and by extension, Cortana. A moment later, a red flash of light appeared, marking a corridor junction outside Recreation One - just down the corridor from their position.

"Marines, boarding craft, docking just ahead," the Chief warned. Without hesitating, the assembled troops moved down the corridor, none of them needing orders to know what they needed to do.

"_Cairo_ to _Malta_, how's it going?" Johnson called over FLEETCOM as they hurried down the passage.

_"You've got multiple incoming, Cairo,"_ came a response over the radio from one of Malta's communications officers. _"We're already engaged over here!"_ There was a pause._ "Stand by, Cairo, boarding craft inbound . . ."_

A dull impact cut across the station, sending tremors through the deck beneath their feet.

"They're latched! Cairo_, be advised, Covenant are in standard formation, little bastards up front, big ones in back. Good luck."_

John nodded as his group moved into Recreation One. Standard Covenant military doctrine was to have Grunts lead any charge, absorbing bullets and setting off traps and ambushes, while Jackals followed, covering the Elites with their shields, with Hunters behind them and Drones flanking. They had seen it innumerable times before, and knew how to compensate.

Recreation One was a wide room, featuring several holographic consoles to allow crew to communicate and access the planetary Chatternet, as well as larger screens that displayed public broadcasts. Now, all images shown were of the station, as no less than fifteen of the spindly Covenant boarding craft moved and jockeyed into position around the station. Out one of the broad windows at the far end of the room, John could see one such craft in position, its extended boarding mechanism latched onto the corridor just outside this room.

Marines and crewmen took cover behind the displays as Johnson set and deployed his M247 at the back of the room, on a raised platform giving him a perfect view of the far end of the chamber, where a single locked door led to the compromised corridor. Marines and sailors leveled their weapons at this single door and thumbed off their safeties, fingers hovering over their triggers.

"Fields of fire on that bulkhead," Johnson growled as he crouched behind his machinegun. John scanned the room and spotted a side chamber that overlooked the rest of the room, and had several supporting girders that would provide ample cover and give him a perfect line of sight to set up a cross fire against any Covenant that breached the room. The discharge of plasma rifles could be heard beyond the door, along with the squeals of Grunts as they fought against an unseen enemy.

"Soon as that door opens," Johnson continued as the Chief crouched behind one of the pillars and shouldered his rifle. A gleaming white light began to erupt from the door as the Covenant on the other side started to cut through. "Let 'em have it!"

An instant later, the door shattered inward with a blazing explosion of metal and heat, and green and white globules of plasma poured through the entrance to Recreation One. John depressed his rifle's trigger at one source of incoming fire, and a Grunt was perforated by 9.5mm rounds through the torso as chaos turned Recreation One into a warzone.

* * *

Usso 'Poramee clenched his plasma rifle in hand as he moved toward the umbilical connecting his ship to the human station. The Sangheili Major stepped into the round passage and felt the gravity directors propel him forward, down the darkened corridor and toward the passageway beyond. He whispered a prayer to the Forerunners as he heard the blaze of plasma fire outside, and an instant later, he was out of the dark umbilical and his hooves hit the floor. He dropped into a crouch as he heard an Unggoy scream in pain, and shining blue blood splattered against the bulkhead beside him. The Sangheili looked up, and spotted a human soldier crouched behind an ammunition crate, firing one of their loud and primitive projectile rifles at the Covenant warriors in the passage. 

Without hesitating, the Sangheili Major rose to his full height of two and a half meters, bellowed a war cry, and fired his plasma rifle. Three blue-white bolts of energy flashed down the corridor and into the human's upper torso, and he collapsed backward behind the crate.

With that taken care of, the corridor became momentarily silent. Usso stepped forward as more Unggoy and Sangheili came through the umbilical, and took a quick tally of the dead and wounded. Seven living Unggoy were in the passage, crouched or hiding behind cover, and three more were down. A single fallen Sangheili Minor was slumped against the wall next to Usso, purple blood leaking onto the deck. Three fallen humans were down the passage. Four Covenant for three human. Acceptable in a boarding action against dug-in enemy troops.

Several of the humans' crude metal doorways led off from this passage. Consulting the mental schematics he had memorized, Usso remembered that the humans' command center should be through the first doorway on the right and down the passage to the left. While not an absolutely essential target in this battle, eliminating it would stop the humans' defense coordination, making their task easier.

"Demolitions," Usso ordered, turning to the troops entering the passage behind him. One white-armored Unggoy looked up, and pulled a small plasma charge off his methane backpack as Usso pointed toward the door in question. "Destroy that obstruction." The Major turned toward the rest of his troops as they assembled in the passage. "'Entamee, 'Firamee, 'Kendavai, take your files down that passage ahead and ensure no enemy attacks us from the rear. The remainder will follow me to their command center."

The Unggoy demolitions worker finished arming his bomb and scampered back, drawing his plasma pistol as the three Sangheili Minors and their Unggoy cohorts moved up the corridor. The thirty remaining troops crouched and waited as the plasma charge heated up, sending a gout of fire into the human doorway. Usso steeled himself, raising his weapon, and closed his eyes an instant before the charge detonated, blasting the door apart in a shower of titanium and superheated matter.

"For the Covenant!" he declared, and the Unggoy surged forward, into the opening, their plasma pistols firing wildly, green bolts filling the smoky air. One died instantly, bullets stabbing through its chest, and the blazing reports of human projectiles drowned out the hiss of firing plasma. Usso dove through the passage, his rifle blazing blindly through the smoke and chaos. Unggoy blood splashed over his shields, and the energy barrier sparked as a burst of human gunfire smashed into it, and then he was through the smoke and diving behind a console. Usso dropped into a crouch as an Unggoy was hurled to the deck by human gunfire, his methane tank spewing gas and throwing the corpse through the air. The Major's ears ached under the roar of exchanging gunfire and plasma as he pointed his rifle around the console and fired a burst at a human in a white uniform. The clothes erupted as the blue-white bolts flashed through them and annihilated the skin underneath, and the human fell to the floor screaming and bleeding.

Out of the corner of his eye, Usso spotted movement, and turned, seeing a green-clad human firing a rifle at the doorway with casual, practiced ease. He started to raise his weapon at the human when he recognized the armor and faceless visor of the helmet, and sudden, irrational fear gripped the Sangheili as he recognized the cursed armor of _the_ _Demon_.

Usso's hand fell to his left breastplate, and grasped his energy blade, and with a wild roar of anger and fear, he ignited the blade and rushed from his prone position, challenging the monster that had desecrated Halo.

* * *

A Grunt rushed through the doorway, and died as John sent a three-round burst through its skull. The small alien fell backward, propped up by its methane tank, and tripped up an Elite that followed. The oversized alien stumbled as it kicked aside the much smaller corpse, and in the instant that it was in the open, four Marines sighted and gunned it down in a hail of rifle and sub-machinegun fire. Bullets smashed into the Elite's shields, overwhelming them, and slashed through the alien's torso, sending the large alien to the deck. 

Plasma fire continued to surge out the doorway as more Covenant rushed forward, and a Marine in dress whites went down screaming under a barrage of fire. A second Marine grabbed the wounded soldier and dragged him out of the line fire, even as John fired upon an Elite as it charged over the corpses littering the entrance, his rifle's bullets eating into the shield at its head. Even as the Elite realized where the shots were coming from, two bullets dove through the side of its head, and it dropped to the floor. A Grunt scrambled over the corpse, and took a single round to the neck, phosphorescent blood bursting from the wound.

A roar filled the air, drowning out some of the gunfire, and John's translation matrix interpreted the shout as a directed challenge. He looked down at where the roar had originated from, in time to see a red-armored Elite ignite an energy blade. A white, two-pronged flattened wedge of plasma surged around the Elite's wrist as it stared directly at John, eyes boring through his faceplate, and then rushed forward, plasma rifle blazing away wildly. The Spartan responded, firing his rifle directly into the charging Elite's face as white-hot energy cut past him. The weapon burst, the Elite's shields flashed, and then the rifle clicked empty as the magazine ran out. Without wasting a beat, John dropped the battle rifle and drew his M7, leveling it at the charging Elite and firing at full-auto with one hand. His shields flashed and brightened as plasma crashed into them, but they held as his sub-machinegun kicked and jumped, caseless bullets crashing into the Elite's shield as it leapt into the air.

The Master Chief hopped back as the Elite landed on the platform, its energy blade slashing down into the metal at his feet in an overhead cleave. It dug into the Titanium-A decking, and then was yanked free with a single flick of the alien's wrist. John continued firing, and the M7's magazine ran empty even as purple blood gushed from the Elite's torso, the rounds punching through its armor. The enraged alien surged forward, either not seriously injured or too angry to care, and slashed across with the sword.

John dropped the M7 and ducked, the blade passing over his head and blowing out his shields. His MJOLNIR's internal temperature spiked as the blade passed dangerously close. Instinctively recognizing his opponent's vulnerability, the human shot forward as the weapon arced past. The Spartan's left arm shot up, catching the Elite's sword-arm at the wrist and shoving it backward, even as his right balled into a fist and jabbed into the alien's wounded chest. It roared in pain as the Spartan's hand cracked near-unbreakable bones, and John shoved the alien backward against one of the support girders, his right hand shooting up and jabbing between the mandibles. He pushed backward viciously, smashing its head into the pillar and denting the Elite's helmet, dazing it for an instant. Not hesitating, the Chief snapped his right hand down to his waist, grabbed his combat knife, and stabbed upward into the Elite's mouth as it tried to come forward. The blade cut up into its skull and through the creature's brain, stopping its recovery cold.

The energy blade fell from the Elite's hand, flashing off as its safety systems engaged, and John let the corpse fall to the floor as he grabbed his battle rifle. His hands moved in quick, cutting motions as he reloaded the rifle, and he raised it, sighting the last remaining Covenant. There was no thought, no hesitation; he would have time to reflect on the knife's edge he had just danced later. The Marines and Johnson had killed most of the advancing enemy during John's brief battle with the red-armored Elite veteran, and all that remained were a few Grunts that were panicking under the combined human gunfire and the deaths of their leaders. Within a few seconds, the last surviving Covenant were gunned down, and Recreation One was secure.

"No time for nappin'!" Johnson shouted, hefting the M247. "There's more outside! Press forward!" The Marines and Navy crewmen rose from their defensive positions and moved ahead, Johnson in the lead, and John dropped down from his flanking position and moved toward the blasted doorway. A quick check of the station's sensors showed a pair of Elites and four Grunts in the passage outside, with many more corpses scattered elsewhere in the corridor. John flashed a series of hand signals to the Marines, warning them of the danger, and then stepped into the passage outside.

The Covenant were at an intersection to the right, among a series of ammunition crates, and were taking cover from incoming bullets pouring down another corridor as several human defenders pinned them down. The Chief primed and threw a grenade at the Covenant troops, and a panicked squeal from a Grunt heralded its arrival in their midst. The dull explosion filled the air around the aliens with flying shrapnel, and the onrushing humans pumped a river of gunfire into the Covenant survivors. Between the cross-fire and the grenade, the aliens were cut down before they'd had time to realize they were flanked.

A quick check of the station's internal sensors showed that the enemy in the immediate vicinity had been eliminated, and the bridge was secure. Dozens of contacts were popping up across the station, however, and the Covenant were rapidly outnumbering the human defenders. He quickly considered the options, and made a decision. He selected the highest ranking enlisted man, Sergeant Gimmers, a heavy-set, dark-skinned soldier.

"Sergeant Gimmers," John spoke quickly as the Marines policed the fallen aliens' weapons. The Marine glanced up, and the Master Chief nodded toward Recreation One, while using his suit's comms to highlight the Marines and crewmen who were surrounding them.

"Sergeant, I need you and everyone here to cover this approach to the bridge from Recreation One." Gimmers nodded.

"Aye, Chief," he replied, and turned to the surviving soldiers and sailors, and pointed back the way they had come. "You heard the Master Chief! Get back there and cover the Admiral's ass! Move it!"

"I know you're not leaving _me_ out of this party, Chief," remarked Johnson, and the Spartan turned back toward the end of the corridor, leading deeper into the station. "What are you planning on doing?"

"We're going to sweep this station clear of anything not human, Sergeant Major," John responded with dead seriousness. Johnson flashed the Spartan a perfect white-toothed smile.

"Now that's my kinda thinking, Chief."

* * *

-

* * *

A few notes on this chapter: I'm working on incorporating elements of the _Halo Graphic Novel_ into this story, which is why I referenced both "Armor Testing" and "Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor" in this chapter. I'm also going to take a few steps to make the Cairo Station battle progress slightly more logically than it did in-game; for example, Johnson's accompanying the Master Chief.

Until next chapter...


	3. Chapter II: Chill Exposure

_**Chapter II: Chill Exposure**_

Plasma splattered against the Titanium-A equipment crate as Sergeant Tim Niles dove behind it. The snarling roar of an Elite could be heard below as it saw its human victim escape its wrath, and then the alien then spun on one of the other half-dozen human Marines scattered across the Pelican bay. Niles waited a half second, and then leaned around from behind cover, leveling his M6C sidearm at the first enemy he saw, a Grunt waddling out from behind a crate below. His pistol kicked twice, and he watched the small alien's head shatter as the heavy 12.7mm round punched through its skull. Another Grunt nearby squealed in surprise, and the top of its methane tank became visible as it edged back behind the crate. Two more shots punctured the tank, and methane jets burst out of the environment suit, sending the alien flipping and spinning across the deck.

Return fire slashed past Niles as he took cover once again, and cursed the fact that he didn't have anything heavier than his personal sidearm on hand. He hadn't had time to grab even an M7 caseless, the attack had come so fast. Hell, he was still in his dress whites, having run here full out from the bridge. And here he was, pinned down on the second level of Pelican Bay One as a dozen Covenant bastards were pouring through the outer bay door via an external boarding craft.

"Here comes more!" came a slightly panicked shout from below, over the roar of battle rifles and sub-machineguns and the whine of blazing plasma. More Covenant poured out of the umbilical connection stabbing through the outer bay door, mostly Grunts. Niles rose up and quickly sighted the Covenant troops, and his sidearm kicked three times in rapid succession. Two Grunts fell, and two more dove for cover, while the Elite accompanying the group fired up at Niles, blue-white plasma cutting dangerously close. The Marine ducked behind cover again, and checked his magazine, to find two rounds remaining.

_Stupid, stupid, coming here with a single magazine for your damn sidearm . . . . _

Niles looked around for any other weapons, and spotted a Marine laying on the catwalk about twenty feet down, his M7 lying next to him, his torso smoking from a dozen plasma bolts that had burned through his armor. Niles crouched low to the ground as he heard another Marine scream and die under the incoming plasma fire, and made a quick dash for the sub-machinegun. Plasma flashed by overhead as opportunistic Covenant shot at the white-clad human, and one blast singed off some of his closely shaved hair as he dove for the weapon. Niles felt his fingers wrap around the sub-machinegun, and he scrambled back for cover, pausing only to grab an extra magazine off the unfortunate Marine's corpse.

White-hot pain shot through Niles' left arm as a plasma pistol bolt hit home, and green sparks of light surged from his bicep as the Marine fell to the deck. The burning pain froze up every nerve and muscle in his body, and Niles realized at that instant that the Covenant could hit him through the grating of the catwalk. Below, a Grunt raised its plasma pistol sighting him -

- and was perforated by three 9.5mm rounds that stabbed through its forehead. Other Covenant shouted and screamed as a wall of gunfire arced across the Pelican bay, coming from above the embattled Marines, through one of the doors on the upper catwalk. Niles rolled over in time to see a half-dozen Marines storm through that doorway, carrying M7s, battle rifles, and one even wielding an M247 machinegun that he balanced on the catwalk's railing.

However, Niles' eyes were caught on a green blur of ceramic armor that jumped off the catwalk and landed on the lower floor, and dashed behind a crate with inhuman speed. The figure's rifle kicked and blazed as he moved, an Elite's shields were overloaded by a dozen precise shots, and bullets tore through the huge alien's face and helmet, sending it crashing to the floor.

The Grunts screamed something, and while Niles didn't have his helmet and its built-in Covenant language-translation software, he recognized the word they were shouting readily enough. It was a word that gave him a newfound sense of hope as he crawled back to cover, watching the green-armored figure annihilate the Covenant below.

"_Demon!"_

* * *

John stepped around the crate, moving as he fired another burst, his bullets slashing though a Grunt's methane tank. The alien went flying wildly across the deck as he circled around the hangar, taking up a flanking position. His HUD showed the relative positions of all the Marines in the hangar bay, including Johnson and the two fireteams of Marines that the Spartan had encountered as they had swept Commons A of Covenant boarders. The new Marine reinforcements, from their elevated positions, were laying down a withering barrage of fire that was forcing the Covenant back behind cover. Even the powerful Elites, with their energy shields, had to hide; any of the aliens in the open were cut down nearly instantly by the new arrivals. 

But as the Covenant took cover from the sudden turn in the battle, that left them vulnerable, and the Master Chief was already in position to exploit that vulnerability. He moved around a crate that was positioned perpendicular to the boxes near the hangar doors where the aliens were entering the room from, and encountered a pair of Grunts that were cowering behind safety. The Spartan's battle rifle smashed down into one of the aliens' heads, reducing it to pulp, and he snapped out his sidearm and fired a quick shot into the second Grunt's head before it could do more than yelp in surprise. In the chaos of the hangar battle, none of the other Covenant heard the shot, and when the Master Chief rolled around the crates and flung a grenade into the aliens' midst, they were caught completely by surprise. One Elite dove away from the grenade, while another was perforated by the blast of shrapnel. Three Grunts were wiped out by the blast, and a third Elite stumbled backward, purple blood flowing from its face and its shields destroyed. John put that one down with a quick burst, and the Elite that had leapt to safety was cut down before it could finish standing up.

As that alien hit the deck, the hangar went silent; no more Covenant emerged from the boarding craft. Judging from the mounds of Covenant already laying on the deck, the boarding craft had spent its entire compliment trying to take this one hangar.

"Is everyone alright?" called Sergeant Johnson as he climbed down the ladder connecting the upper level to the lower one.

"Not sure, Sergeant," came a reply from one of the Marines, who was still breathing heavily from the intense battle. He still clenched his M7 tightly in his hands, and Jon noted his finger was a little too close to the trigger for proper trigger discipline. "We-we've got wounded and taken casualties."

"Cortana, we need medics to Pelican Bay One," the Chief said over his radio, and Cortana flashed him an acknowledgement. The Spartan glanced to the rattled Marine. "Medics are on their way, Corporal."

"Thanks, Chief," the man said, exhaling and trying to calm his nerves.

"Hey, check this out!" came a shout from another Marine as he looked out the transparent bay doors, toward the nearby Malta. "The Malta! They've already driven off their boarders!"

"Covenant bastards are _retreating_?" Johnson muttered, and the Chief agreed with the skeptical tone in his voice as they moved toward the bay windows. Certainly enough, there were numerous white streaks shooting off from the station as the Covenant boarding craft broke off and fled the MAC station.

"Malta_, what is your status? Over."_ Cortana's voice was clinical, though curious, as it came over FLEETCOM.

"_I don't believe it!"_ came a response back from the _Malta'_s defense coordinator. _"All Covenant boarders are retreating! We've won!"_

The words had barely registered in John's ears when a white plume of flame shot out of the center of the MAC station. Surrounding the blast of light, the station began to deform, and more pulses of plasma erupted from the heart of station, reaching out and consuming the width and breadth of the _Malta._ Flames and blazing, white-hot metal spread outward as a tremendous explosion shot through the remainder of the MAC gun, ripping it apart and scattering hundreds of thousands of pieces of white-hot debris across the blackness of space.

The _Malta_ was _gone_.

"God in Heaven," whispered Johnson.

"This is bad, real bad," muttered another Marine. John's mind began to race, trying to figure out what had just happened, when the floor shook and the roar of an explosion vibrated his MJOLNIR. The Spartan spun around as fresh hostile contacts appeared on his HUD, and a swarm of new Covenant troops stormed into the hangar bay from an adjacent corridor. Analysis of the Covenant threat was put on hold as John sighted and gunned down another Elite, and the Marines rushed to eliminate the new threat.

* * *

"Covenant boarders, coming inside!" came a shout from Navy Lieutenant Ready as the Marines and crewmen manning the _Cairo's_ Fire Control Center scrambled for weapons. A dozen and more soldiers and sailors rushed to the port side of the room as an elevator loaded with Covenant troops hissed to a stop outside. Men and women took cover behind whatever they could as the door began to glow a bright white, sparks flying from the connection between the locked blast doors. Several Marines reached for grenades when the door blew open, launching debris and material everywhere; one sailor caught a piece of shrapnel to the side of his unarmored head and hit the deck, dead instantly. 

Fragmentation grenades flew out toward the door even as blue-white blazes of light - Covenant plasma grenades - flew back toward them. A grenade slapped against one Marine's sidearm and adhered to it. He screamed and threw it aside, but before the pistol could fly far enough, it detonated, and the unfortunate soldier was incinerated by the resulting rush of blue-white light, his corpse launched through the air.

As grenades exploded, plasma burst from the open doorway. Grunts hurled themselves through the entrance, their pistols sparking and firing, and were gunned down. Elites rushed out the entrance right behind them, their plasma rifles blazing as the Grunts bought them the precious seconds they needed to punch through the human resistance.

But though these Marines and Navy crewmen were frightened and many of them were only technicians, they fought back with ferocity to match the Covenant's own fanatical warriors. Sub-machineguns and pistols blazed, and grenades landed among the standing Elites, battering down their shields. One of the huge aliens doubled over as a line of 5.7mm caseless bullets dug through its gut, and another seemed to fly apart as a grenade and three separate soldiers struck it at once. The Covenant began to scatter and were virtually routed, and many Grunts panicked and began to break off.

Then a white-armored Elite leapt through the breach, a plasma rifle in its left hand and a glowing white wedge of energy in the other. With no fear or hesitation in its eyes, the Elite Ultra roared a challenge as it rushed into the room, its plasma rifle blazing away, cutting down one Marine in a remorseless barrage of fury. Several soldiers turned their weapons on the Ultra as it charged straight toward them, its enhanced shields lighting up into a blinding display of flashing light as bullets smashed against it.

But neither the Ultra nor his exceptionally powerful shields broke, and he bore in, his rifle burning down another soldier as Marines and sailors stood up and began to back away, emptying their magazines into the alien's seemingly impossible-to-break shields. Then, he was upon them, and his sword struck.

In a single sweeping motion, the Elite's blade gutted one Marine and sliced a crewman in half, and it whirled on another soldier, his blade cutting down and severing the man's gun arm. As he screamed and fell down, the alien whirled, slashing out behind itself, and took down a fourth human with casual ease. Turning back to the fallen Marine, the Elite fired a single blast from its rifle into the human's face with a contemptuous snort, and then spun on the rest of the battle.

The Covenant, heartened by the arrival of the Ultra onto the field of battle, renewed their attack, and the humans, with more than half their number slaughtered in a few seconds, could not hold back the alien tide. A river of plasma erupted and pinned them down as Grunts rushed forward and Elites flanked them, picking them off one by one in a shower of merciless white plasma. The Ultra's blade sizzled as he tore through more victims, and within moments only corpses and blackened, severed body parts remained of the human defenders.

The Fire Control Center went silent, and Ultra Commander Rena 'Tantafee, the leader of the Covenant forces that were assaulting the station, turned toward his troops.

"Bring the purifying light inside," 'Tantafee ordered with a snarl. "Let its flame _burn_ this human infestation from the skies!"

* * *

Pelican Bay Two was nearly overrun. Corpses of Marine defenders littered the deck as Elites and Grunts moved out from where their boarding craft had breached, and the few surviving humans were pushed back into the corners of the hangar. The aliens were surrounding them, and even at that very moment several Grunts prepared to launch a combined plasma grenade barrage to force the humans out of cover. 

Their priorities changed when a green-armored, half-ton mass of pure havoc rushed into the hangar bay, with nearly a dozen Marines at his back.

Pelican bay Two was transformed into complete chaos. Elites keeled over and fell to the deck as they took fire from a half dozen human weapons at once. A Marine's face was burned to charred ash as a Grunt got a lucky shot off, an instant before Johnson gunned the small alien down. The embattled Marines emerged from cover and drove the surprised Covenant force back. The Elites started to retreat and regroup as the humans cut down frightened and panicking Grunts in a wave of gunfire and bursting phosphorescent blood. As the larger aliens retreated to available cover, however, they found themselves taking fire from a new direction as the Master Chief circled around and hit them from the rear. One of the aliens was killed even as the remainder returned fire, only to catch a volley of fragmentation grenades from both Marines and Spartan. The small explosives blew up all amidst the Elites, and purple blood filled the air while body parts were scattered across the hangar. Two of the aliens stumbled out of the attack, only to be quickly cut down with two rapid bursts from the Master Chief's rifle.

"Sweep and clear!" Johnson ordered as the Marines fanned out across the room. "Make sure all these sons of bitches are dead!" The Marines did as ordered, fanning out and checking the Covenant. Those that still moved, and a few that didn't, were promptly given a burst to the head for their troubles.

"Uh-oh," called one of the Marines as he moved near the bay walls and looked out into space. "They're leaving the _Athens_ too!" The Marines abandoned their sweeps and rushed to the bay walls, in time to catch a front-row seat of the _Athens_ bursting into white-hot flames and shattering across its center, a rapidly expanding plume of white fire consuming and scattering the station, just as with the _Malta._

"_Cortana, report,"_ came Lord Hood's voice over FLEETCOM.

"_Admiral, my scans indicate that explosion came from _inside _the Athens. Same with the Malta."_ The AI paused, and then relayed the grim news. _"The Covenant must have brought something with them: a bomb."_

"_Then they sure as hell brought one here,"_ Hood responded. To his credit, the Admiral seemed to take news as calmly as if he'd stepped on an insect. "_Marines, Master Chief, canvass the station, locate that bomb ASAP!"_

"Yes sir," responded John over the radio, and he glanced to Johnson, who nodded grimly.

"Them Covenant bastards are smarter than we thought," the Marine remarked. "That bomb could be anywhere by now." The Master Chief didn't reply, instead calling up a schematic of the station and accessing the internal biometric scanners. Several portions of the Cairo were marked by areas that the Covenant had overrun: Commons B, Fire Control, and the Loading Docks. The closest location was Commons B, and the quickest way to get there was . . . .

"Cortana, I need access to Ammunition Bay Three," John said over his radio as he moved across the hangar. That bay was just beneath Pelican Bay Two and ran straight to the armory, where the Marines would be able to restock their gear, and move directly into Commons B.

"_Why do I always have to hold the doors open for you?"_ she remarked, and a floor panel slid open, revealing a ramp leading down to Ammunition Bay Three. _"Be careful Chief, I have multiple Covenant-"_

The blaze of John's battle rifle drowned out her words as he cut down a trio of Grunts that had been idling near the door when it opened.

"_There's still one more-"_

A grenade detonation cut her off, followed by two more bursts and the roar of a dying Elite.

"_Nevermind, Chief."_ She went silent as the Master Chief walked down the ramp and into the cleared ammunition bay, a dozen Marines behind him.

* * *

"Fuck you, you squid-faced ugly sack of wet ass!" Gunnery Sergeant Mikes Hanes shouted as he hurled a fragmentation grenade across his armory, at the red-armored Elite that had just smashed through the entrance from Commons B. The alien let out a deep-throated yelp of shock as the grenade bounced off its armor and detonated, blasting away its shield, and the Elite ducked back out of the armory. A blue-armored Elite Minor stepped in its leader's stead, rushing into the armory and firing its plasma rifle on full-auto. White fire shot past Hanes as he dove to the deck, his M90 eight-gauge shotgun in hand. He rolled around the table he was ducking behind, even as the Elite closed in, and jabbed the long-barreled shotgun into the alien's gut. 

The weapon fired, and even the Covenant energy shield couldn't stop the eight-gauge buckshot from smashing through and into the alien's gut. The Elite doubled over, still alive, as most of the shotgun's energy had been lost punching through the shield, but Hanes pumped the weapon's action and fired again, the roar of the shotgun drowning out the alien's death cry as its stomach flew out its back.

The red-armored Elite Major, with another of his blue-clad comrades, moved into the armory as Hanes shot to his feet, blasting in their general direction with his M90. The Elites' shields sparked as the shells hit home, but the aliens were undeterred, and their return fire cut across the room. White-hot pain shot through Gains' chest as the plasma fire stabbed into his torso, and he stumbled backward, numbness rapidly spreading through his chest as what was left of his nerves were burned away by the plasma bolts. The blue-armored Elite took a step forward, and Hanes snapped up his weapon, leveling it directly into the alien's face.

"Get the hell out of my armory!" the Gunnery Sergeant roared, and his shotgun barked. The Elite's face was reduced to violet-tinted hamburger as the buckshot slammed through its weakened shield. The Elite Major fired a quick burst with its plasma rifle, taking Hanes in the chest once again, and the Marine dropped to the deck as his legs gave out.

Mike Hanes stared up at the Elite as it stepped over him, peering down at the human, and then slowly nodded.

"A pity," the creature stated, its throat straining to produce the unusual words of the human language, and then the alien raised its rifle and pointed it as Hanes' face. "For a human, you fought well."

"Fuck yourself," snarled Hanes, and the Elite chuckled, a deep, resonating sound that rattled the Marine's bones. The whine of plasma fire filled the air, and then only darkness remained for Hanes.

The Major turned around and started to leave the human armory, when it found a portion of the floor of the room had slid away, revealing a room below that signs labeled as "Ammunition Bay Three." Emerging from that floor were a half-dozen rifles, all aimed by humans who had none-too-gentle expressions on their faces.

Violet blood splattered over Gunnery Sergeant Mike Hanes's corpse, and the Major dropped to the deck, an alien expression of shock across what remained of its face. Sergeant Johnson climbed up into the armory and fired two more bursts into the Elite's head, just to make sure it was dead, while the rest of the Marines and the Master Chief moved up into the room.

"Reload and re-arm, Marines," Johnson ordered, and the soldiers scattered across the armory, picking up fresh magazines from ammunition boxes and grabbing additional weapons, including battle rifles and grenades. As they did so, Johnson stepped over to what remained of Hanes, and shook his head. He glanced up to the Master Chief, who said nothing. They were both all too familiar with this occurrence: they had been speaking with this man no more than half an hour ago, and now he was dead.

"We'll pay 'em back, Master Guns," growled Johnson as he closed the dead Marine's eyes, and then stood. Without another word, the Master Chief bent down and lifted Hanes' shotgun, and silently loaded it with shells taken off the table, his battle rifle slid over his shoulder and attached to magnetic clamps on his back. John paused to check the station schematics, and noted that large numbers of the enemy were scattered in Commons B, some just outside the door. A dozen Grunts and half that many Elites were on the lower floor, and an equal number had dug in at the security station overlooking the room, and it looked like they were readying mounted rapid-fire plasma turrets for combat. That would be bad for his troops. While the Spartan could survive dancing with those turrets, the Marines had neither MJOLNIR nor energy shields nor the inhuman speed of a Spartan.

"Marines," the Chief said, addressing the remaining soldiers in the room. The mixed collection of leathernecks turned toward him, and those who had helmets had their own HUDs flash as he sent them the available data.

"The enemy is dug in in the next room," he explained. "I want you to remain at the rear and cover me as I advance."

"And let you have all the fun, Chief?" asked one Marine, his expression hardening.

"I'm not losing anyone to those gun emplacements," John answered, a highlighted their locations. "The Covenant have set up one in the security station at the far side of the room with a clear line of fire across most of the Commons." He took out a plasma grenade he had taken from a dead Grunt. "Cover me until I can get close enough to tag it."

"Understood, Chief," Johnson replied. "And if you jarheads don't like it, then tough! Suck it up, plenty of split-chins and chimps to kill after the Chief has his fun." The Marines reluctantly nodded, but John could see the anger and the bloodlust in their eyes. They had all lost comrades and family to the Covenant, and they were all eager to get revenge. Though he could sympathize, however slightly, with them, he would not allow the Marines to kill themselves blindly seeking vengeance.

The Spartan moved to the door leading out of the armory, and paused. The Covenant in the room outside knew that there were humans hiding in the armory, though how many and their composition they probably were uncertain of.

The Elites and Grunts covering the exit were caught off-guard when the armory door opened and they found themselves staring into the impassive reflective faceplate of a MJOLNIR-clad Spartan, an instant before his shotgun blasted one of the aliens to the floor. John barreled over one Elite in blue armor, smashing his shotgun into the alien's gut and letting the Marines behind him finish it off as he bolted across the Common. Plasma fire from a dozen sources cut down toward the Spartan, splattering against his shields, but they held as he rushed across the room.

Commons B consisted of a wide atrium that featured two elevated platforms and numerous planted trees rising toward an open transparisteel canopy that looked out into the vista of space. Under ordinary circumstances, it was a place for the crew to gather and relax, but today it was scattered with the corpses of Covenant invaders and UNSC defenders, and painted the myriad shades of alien and human blood.

John ducked into a side corridor running alongside the Commons, and found himself face to face with a quartet of Grunts with an Elite behind them. Without hesitating, the Spartan leapt over the Grunts and dove straight for the larger alien behind them. His shotgun fired a quick blast into the alien's chest in mid-leap, and the buckshot punched through. Purple blood splattered over the Elite's armor as it was staggered backward by the force of the blow, and the Spartan landed right in front of it. His shotgun's butt flew across into the Elite's unprotected face, and the mandibles on the left side of the alien's face were crushed. John snapped the barrel of the shotgun back across, against the other side of the Elite's face, and its skull cracked under the impact. It fell to the floor, unconscious or dead.

Behind the Spartan, the Grunts panicked as their commander fell, squealing and screaming in terror. The Spartan whirled around and helped motivate them to flee by blasting one of the small aliens into a glittering blue mess at point-blank range. The remaining Grunts, some with their comrade's own blood splattered across their faces, turned and fled down the corridor away from the Spartan, and right into the line of fire of a dozen vengeful Marines. Their death cries were drowned out by the torrent of gunfire as John moved up the corridor, and paused at a doorway leading into Commons B.

Two Grunts were hiding behind a makeshift barriers that the Marine defenders had managed to erect before being overrun. Two quick buckshot blasts sent them to the deck, and the Spartan leaned out, getting an angle of the gun turret located on the other side of the room. He spotted a single Grunt in the green armor and environment suit of a heavy weapons specialist, and primed a plasma grenade. The Spartan's arm pumped, and the grenade shot toward the alien, nearly forty feet away, and hit it dead center between the eyes. The glowing blue ball adhered to the alien's skin, and the light blinded the Grunt as it screamed in panic. An azure explosion consumed both gunner and gun turret an instant later, and John signaled to the Marines that they were clear to advance. The Spartan shot across the Commons once more, drawing fire from a couple of Covenant in the security station upstairs, which allowed the Marines to spot their locations and gun them down.

An Elite roar and a flash of a new contact on his local radar greeted as the Spartan ducked into the hallway on the opposite side of Commons B. The huge alien took a swing at John with its plasma rifle, and the Chief's left hand shot up, catching the alien's descending arm by the wrist, while his right angled the shotgun into its stomach and fired. At that range, the Elite's shields did nothing to save it, and most of its stomach was reduced to a splattered mass of purple gore that slashed across the bulkhead beyond. Stepping over the corpse, the Spartan could hear more gunfire as the Marines suppressed enemy Covenant and advanced. The Chief paused at another door down the corridor that opened on the far side of the Commons, directly beneath the windows of the security station, and peered across the room.

A wide hallway leading to a docking bay was visible on the other side of the Commons, and a dozen Covenant were taking cover in there, regrouping. Their number was cut in half when John sidearmed a fragmentation grenade into their midst, the explosive sphere bouncing off a Grunt's forehead and detonating. The smaller aliens scattered while the Elite shook their heads, and John could catch one cursing as it spotted him, even as the Spartan dashed across Commons B. His shotgun blasted, pumped, and then blasted again, and two of the stunned Elites fell before the Spartan rolled around the side of the doorway. Plasma flew past as the remaining Elites and Grunts snapped of hasty return fire.

He heard one Elite issuing orders to its Grunt cohorts, and then the Spartan flicked a plasma grenade around the corner to keep them from recovering. He didn't expect it to hit anyone, but the glowing ball of flame would certainly startle the Covenant. As he rolled around the doorway an instant later, John found several aliens diving away from the grenade, and one Elite glancing sideways at the explosive. That one took a shotgun blast to the head, and the Spartan pivoted, blasting the remaining Grunts and last Elite with individual shots.

The Covenant had barely hit the floor when Johnson and his Marine group had caught up. Several continued firing up into the security room, keeping the aliens up there pinned down; John's HUD read three Grunts and a pair of Elites still alive.

"Marines," the Chief ordered to the firing soldiers. They glanced his way, but kept firing bursts at the pinned aliens. "On my mark, frag that room!" They nodded, and the Spartan, Johnson, and the remaining Marines rushed into the hallway and the stairwell just beyond, which connected to the security room. The troops assembled outside the door leading into the room, rifles raised.

"Marines, mark!" the Chief ordered, and the gunfire slackened as three Marines flung fragmentation grenades up into the room. John counted down from three seconds, and as he heard the grenades detonate, he opened the door and rushed inside. Johnson's shout of "Go-go-go!" was echoing in his ears as he spotted one wounded Elite reaching with its left hand for its rifle, still clutched in its right hand several feet away. Gunfire filled the room as Spartan and Marines cut down the few surviving aliens in a torrent of violence.

"Commons B secured!" Johnson shouted triumphantly. John did not reply to the Marine's shout, instead checking the area for any further signs of Covenant presence.

"Marines," he ordered. "Sweep this area, look for any kind of unusual Covenant ordnance. Make sure that bomb isn't hidden here." The Marines acknowledged his order and split up into fireteams, scattering across the security station and hurrying down to the Commons to check for explosives. Meanwhile the Master Chief expanded his sweep of the area, and detected additional Covenant contacts, and plasma weapon discharges, just outside at the docking bay umbilicals. UNSC IFF transponders showed several Navy crewmen outside, including . . . Commander Keyes.

"Johnson, on me!" the Chief ordered instantly, and rushed out the far end of the security station, with the dark-skinned Sergeant Major right behind him. They turned a corner, and plasma splashed against John's shields as he spotted a pair of Elites and a clutch of Grunt down the corridor, hiding behind a series of ammunition crates. To his right was Miranda and two of her crew, armed with M7s, crouched in an alcove along the bulkhead. John dropped his shotgun and pulled his battle rifle off his back, preferring the longer range and higher accuracy of the rifle or this situation. He advanced, firing as he moved, and crouched behind another ammunition box as one of the Elites' shields failed and it hit the floor.

"Chief, thanks for the rescue," Miranda called as Johnson cut down a Grunt. The Naval officers leaned out from behind cover and opened fire, and John covered them as they advanced to a better firing position. The Covenant troops, now outnumbered, were pushed back, and the Spartan lobbed a frag grenade into the air, bouncing it off the ceiling and dropping it straight into their midst. It exploded an instant later, killing the remaining aliens in a single flash of shrapnel and noise.

"Thanks Chief," Miranda said, as she stood up. "I owe you one for that."

"Are you okay?" John asked her, and the Commander nodded.

"I was almost on board then _they_ showed up," she explained.

"You'd better link up with the fleet," the Chief began to say, when he was suddenly cut off.

"_Sorry to interrupt the reunion,"_ Cortana's voice cut in. _"But I've found the Covenant's surprise. Boarders have breached the Fire Control Center. They have a bomb set up and armed. The Admiral is ordering an evacuation."_

"Without this station the Covenant fleet will rip apart Harper's battle group," John stated, shaking his head. "We have to stop that bomb."

"_Fire control is accessible through the external loading docks,"_ Cortana explained. _"Only way to get there is to take a spacewalk in hard vacuum, and you're the only one who can make the trip, Chief."_

"Understood," John replied. "I'll take care of it."

"You sure, Chief?" Miranda asked, and John nodded. Schematics flashed on his HUD, showing the quickest route to where he needed to go, which was right outside the next umbilical docking station.

"Get going, Chief," Johnson added. "I'll chaperone the Commander." The Spartan nodded and started down the hallway, hopping over the ammunition crate the Covenant had been using for cover. One of the Grunts was still alive, crawling toward a plasma pistol. A green, ceramic-armored boot solved that, and John moved on.

Around the corner ahead was a wide corridor of airlock chamber, that ended with a blast door which would normally connect a docked UNSC ship to the station. John moved into the passage, and started to access the local airlock controls via his suit's comms, when the rear door slid shut without warning.

"Cortana," John called over the radio. "Did you just do that?"

"_Negative, Chief," _she replied._ "I'm picking up someone accessing the airlock controls from _outside_ the station."_

"Understood," the Chief replied, and moved to the end of the corridor as the air pumps finished. The outer door began to slide open, and two Elites rushed through the entrance, clad in zero-gravity vacuum suits with thrusters mounted on their backs. The aliens came to a sudden stop when confronted by the unexpected Spartan, who fired his shotgun into one Elite's face at point-blank range. The Elite was blasted backward, its faceplate shattered by the buckshot shell, and launched out into the vacuum beyond.

The second alien swung its plasma rifle at the Spartan, who ducked instantly beneath the blow. The rifle brushed the top of John's shields, and he sprang forward, smashing the butt of his rifle into the armored alien's faceplate. It was lifted up and launched backward, and the Spartan's arm pumped. The Elite's thrusters pulsed as it recovered and reoriented itself toward the human, only to then realize that a shining blue light was burning on its flank.

The plasma grenade's explosion propelled the Elite's incinerated corpse out into the empty void as John stepped out of the airlock. His MJOLNIR's magnetic boots activated as the vertigo of zero-gravity struck him, and he began to carefully clamber out into the emptiness of space, intent on reaching the bomb at the heart of the _Cairo_.

Somewhere beyond the station, however, a decision was made, and the Covenant fleet's engines pulsed as someone made the decision that they could not and _would not_ wait any longer.

* * *

-

* * *

This chapter was originally supposed to include the majority of the Cairo Station battle sequence, but I realized about halfway through that my plans for this chapter were too big for it to be contained within just one part. Thus, I'm cutting it roughly in half, with the Loading Dock and Fire Control Center battles and the Master Chief Is A Crazy Badass Motherfucker cutscene coming next chapter, along with a little bit more fun as well.

As you should have already noticed, I'm working on making this as much a story about the individual Marines and Covenant as well as a story about Halo 2's main protagonists. However, unlike William C. Dietz's novelization of Halo, I'm going to try to avoid skimming over the various encounters and really get into the nitty-gritty of warfare in the Halo universe.

Until next chapter . . . .


	4. Chapter III: Jeweled Hull

_**Chapter III: Jeweled Hull**_

_Lance Corporal Takeshi Ishiyama - KIA_

The name flashed over John's HUD as he checked the dead Marine in the airlock connecting to the Loading Dock. Beside him was a pair of dead Elites, and all of the corpses were clad in their respective species' environment suits. The Master Chief paused only long enough to grab two magazines for his battle rifle from the dead Marine; the time to think about the Lance Corporal's death or the ghoulish need to take ammunition from a fellow soldier was not now.

The Master Chief expected to see Covenant on the other side of the airlock as it hissed open, but a check of the station's sensors showed only a single live Marine on the other side. He stepped through the door, and was staring down the barrel of that frightened soldier's rifle, as the man stood behind a hastily erected metal barrier designed to defend against boarding actions. An instant later, the Marine lowered it, shocked by the presence of a Spartan in full armor.

"Um, ah, Master Chief," the Marine managed to say, standing at attention. His name and rank - Private First Class Thomas Gains - flashed over John's HUD, and the Spartan nodded. Several other IFF transponders pinged on his radar, but all of them were attached to negative life signs. Alien corpses were scattered around the hangar and loading dock room, though the large elevator connecting to the larger supply dock below was not in sight.

"Report," John said, quickly and reassuringly. PFC Gains nodded, and visibly began to calm, and then pointed across the room to where the freight elevator should have been.

"Covenant attacked a few minutes ago," he explained. "Elite Rangers in vacuum suits, and Grunts. We managed to fend them off, but I think I'm the only one left . . . ." As the Master Chief listened, his sensors suddenly flashed red, and his MJOLNIR's audio receptors detected a sudden, high-pitched buzzing sound. A dozen contacts appeared on his radar, rising up the diagonal elevator shaft at high speeds.

"Drones," John warned, and Gains dove behind the barrier an instant before a swarm of dark blue-green insect-like creatures burst over the top of the shaft. Green flares of light erupted from their plasma pistols as the small, airborne creatures sighted the humans. Plasma burned against Gains' barrier while John ducked behind one of the hangar doors, his rifle firing a single quick burst. A Drone let out a high-pitched insectile screech and plunged to the deck as the Spartan's bullets perforated it.

These things were a new sight on the battlefield, swarms of highly agile, intelligent insects that lived in vacuum and low-density atmosphere planets and served as part of the Covenant's engineering caste. It was only in the last few weeks, since Reach fell, that these creatures had been encountered as combat troops; either the Covenant was getting desperate, or more likely, they were simply getting serious about this war after Halo. After all, they hadn't even seen Brutes before they'd boarded the _Unyielding Hierophant_ . . . .

The Drones weren't stupid, and they fought with what seemed like hive-minded tactics. The aliens buzzed and flitted across the loading dock, landing on crates and upper storage levels, giving them excellent lines of sight into the areas where the Marine and Spartan were sheltering. However, the aliens did not advance, instead laying down a withering storm of plasma fire that kept Gains ducking behind cover. John, however, had less to fear from the plasma, and quickly poked his rifle around from behind cover, blasting another of the aliens. The Drones' formation closed to compensate for the loss, but they held position.

The Spartan didn't understand the unusual Covenant reluctance to advance, until more contacts appeared on his sensors, along with the missing freight elevator, which was rising up the shaft. Several Elites and a dozen Grunts.

"Private," John called over the radio. Gains flashed an acknowledgement back. "The Drones are attempting to hold us down until reinforcements arrive on the lift." The Marine nodded, and steeled himself, raising his rifle. They didn't need to say anything else. The Spartan simply patched Gains into the local sensor feed so he could see where the Drones were, and then leaned back out from cover. The Chief's rifle kicked once, then twice, and two Drones near the ceiling fell. The aliens scattered, adjusting their formation, and Gains popped out and took a quick shot, grazing another alien on the far side of the dock.

Plasma and bullets cut back and forth as Spartan and Marine targeted and fired on the alien threat. Drones keeled over and died as John's rifle tracked them in mid-flight, and gains kept the enemy moving, never allowing them time to land and get accurate shots off at either human. The Spartan fell back behind cover as burning green pulses hammered his shields, but they held long enough for him to reach safety. A quick check of the station's sensors and his own motion tracker showed eight of the twelve Drones were down, and the remainder had scattered behind crates and boxes across the hangar.

"Hold position, Private," the Master Chief ordered, and he moved out from behind the wall, dashing across the hangar like a lightning bolt toward the nearest Drone. The Spartan came around a crate swiftly and silently, and smashed both Titanium-A-plated fists down on the green-carapaced alien; ichors splattered across the Spartan's shields and slid off as the alien fell to he deck silently.

His audio sensors caught the buzzing of Drone wings, and John knew that they had sensed the death of their comrade. The remaining Drones suddenly took to the air, flying toward his position and laying down a withering barrage of plasma fire. John's battle rifle kicked as 9.5mm rounds tore through one of the aliens, and then the Drones wheeled around, flanking him on both sides. The Spartan's right arm tracked one Drone, holding his battle rifle one-handed, as his left snapped down, drew his M6C sidearm, and rose up toward the other Drone. Relying on his sensors, experience, and raw instinct to guide his aim, John fired both weapons at once.

Two Drones hit the deck, perforated by a slew of blind-fired rounds, green ichors splattering over the metal floor.

"Chief, less gun-fu and more stopping-the-station-from-exploding-fu, okay?" John frowned as he heard Cortana's voice pop into his helmet. "In other news, someone on the Covenant side has apparently had a complete loss of sanity. They've decided to go charging headfirst into a Super MAC's killzone. I count thirteen Covenant cruisers screening the two assault carriers, and they're all burning engines hot. I'm going loud. Be advised, Chief, crossing from the freight dock to the Fire Control Center during firing operations may get messy."

"Understood," John responded, and checked the approaching freight elevator. It was two thirds of the way up the shaft, and was still teeming with Covenant troops. He would have to deal with them first.

The Spartan popped the pins on two fragmentation grenades and hurled them toward the ascending elevator, and then leveled his battle rifle at the ensuing carnage below.

* * *

"Captain Daniels, status," Lord Hood ordered as he marched across the Cairo's bridge and looked over an ensign's screen, displaying a wing of Longswords moving ahead of the _Berlin_, Admiral Harper's flagship. 

"_Admiral, we've finished securing Habitats Alpha and Bravo,"_ came the response from Captain Daniels, the commanding officer of the Cairo's Marine detachment. "_We've also secured both Pelican and Longsword bays, and are finishing a sweep of the Commons. The only unsecured areas are the freight elevators and docks and the Fire Control Center."_

"Casualties?" Hood asked, straightening.

"_We've suffered about sixty percent losses, sir,"_ Daniels answered over the intercom. Hood closed his eyes momentarily. Seventy and more crew dead for over twice that number of Covenant. While it was a fair trade, those were dead that humanity couldn't afford.

"Continue station-wide sweep and clear," Hood ordered. "Cortana, status on those Covenant ships?"

"Standby," came the AI's cool, controlled voice, and the entire station shook. Hood peered out the vast viewport in time to see a column of white-hot light lance out from the towering magnetic accelerator cannon and rip across the void toward the Covenant fleet. That told him all he really needed to know.

"Admiral Harper, you are clear to engage," Hood commanded as he saw the superheated mass of molten tungsten crash into one of the Covenant cruisers on the monitor, plowing through its shields and burying into its hull, before ripping out the far end in a shower of blue-white pyrotechnics. The aft end of the ship fragmented into a thousand shards of slagged alien metal, and the cruiser seemed to collapse in on itself.

The rest of the Covenant force advanced, heedless of the destruction of their fellow ship. One of the assault carriers pulsed its point defense lasers, burning away portions of the destroyed ship's debris that flew dangerously close to its path. The lateral lines of every Covenant ship began to gleam as plasma was gathered to fire.

"All ships, follow my lead!" ordered Harper as a line of explosions marked where the Seraph fighter screen met UNSC Longswords.. "First echelon, blanket those cruisers, take them out one by one. Second echelon, target the carriers!"

Two seconds later fifty more MAC rounds, fired from the much smaller cannons of Harper's fleet, flashed toward the Covenant battlegroup, even as the alien vessels unleashed their plasma torpedoes. Archer missiles erupted from the UNSC fleet in a tidal wave of flaring fusion engines. The shells and missiles separated, the majority of them careening toward the cruisers while the blazing torches of sixty plasma torpedoes descended upon the UNSC force. Hood watched intently as the initial exchange of fire crossed, a handful of Archers consumed by passing plasma torpedoes.

Individual MAC shells smashed into and bounced off the powerful shields of the cruisers. However, the volley of fire poured into the cruiser formation as they screened the carriers, and Covenant shields shattered under the barrage; the sheer number of MAC rounds battered down the Covenant fleet's defenses. Archer missiles swept in behind them, but flashes of hair-thin light intercepted many of them, slicing them apart in a shower of the Covenant's all-too typical precision point-defense. Those missiles that survived plunged into the Covenant hulls, exploding against jeweled hulls and breaking through armored layers, detonating within the Covenant warships in a shower of incandescent destruction.

When the flares of light faded, the Covenant fleet had been reduced to seven cruisers, one of which shattered and flew apart an instant later as the MAC gun raged again.

Twenty of the Covenant plasma torpedoes began to break down as the magnetic bubbles sheathing them lost cohesion, the ships controlling them destroyed. However, the dissipating waves of plasma still rolled over the UNSC fleet, burning off the armor and outer weapons of a half dozen unfortunate frigates. The remaining torpedoes retained cohesion long enough to plow into the UNSC fleet, ripping through frigates and tearing gaping holes in cruisers. Titanium-A armor flared like so much kindling as the Covenant shots tore through the human vessels, splitting the smaller frigates apart and ravaging the greater battleships.

Hood looked upon the fleet report on the main screen, and tried his hardest to hide his grimace. In a single barrage, the vastly smaller Covenant fleet had destroyed forty-one frigates and three cruisers, and badly damaged a half-dozen more ships. Over _half_ the fleet was lost.

Cortana inflicted savage vengeance an instant later, and another Covenant cruiser was blasted apart by a massive tungsten warhead flying at eight-tenths the speed of light.

Cortana might be the only chance they had at stopping the advancing Covenant fleet, Hood realized. An instant later, that thought was followed by another: why were the Covenant advancing in the first place? While the Elites were fanatical fighters, they weren't stupid, and they had to know that even with cruisers and assault carriers they didn't stand a chance against the hundreds of UNSC warships and vast array of MAC stations in orbit. Even if they _did_ get on the ground, the Covenant ships couldn't carry enough troops to overwhelm any part of Earth's surface for more than a few hours.

What were the Covenant planning?

Whatever it was, Hood would be damned if they'd allow the Covenant to succeed.

"Cortana, continue firing on those cruisers, pick them off. Admiral, we cannot let the Covenant fleet get past this defense cluster. Do whatever it takes to stop them from breaking through, understood?"

"_Aye, sir,"_ Harper's voice came in, over a burst of static. Outside, another cruiser broke and shattered under Cortana's wrath, and the UNSC fleet began to slowly turn, tracking the enemy. A staccato of MAC shells and a fresh volley of missiles burst from the surviving ships, slamming into the Covenant fleet as it started to push past the human vessels. Alien shields buckled and Covenant hulls cracked, and Archer missiles buried into the passing behemoths. Two cruisers began to glow with blue-white fury as the assault broke through their hulls, and the mighty Covenant battleships exploded in torrents of cyan light.

The Covenant pressed on, the surviving cruisers and carriers loosing another barrage of plasma torpedoes as they started to close with the station. UNSC ships weaved and dodged as the plasma dove in, and a handful of torpedoes were evaded by last-ditch maneuvers, yet a dozen and more human vessels were caught, blasted, and torn asunder by the deadly alien weapons.

The MAC station shook again, and another cruiser was blasted to scrap, and the battered remains of the UNSC fleet launched another barrage against the Covenant ships as they passed the _Cairo_.

"_The carriers are breaking through sir! We can't stop them!"_ Harper's voice could be heard over the intercom, and the two vast Covenant battleships began to tear past the station, their plasma conduits glowing like harsh eyes in the void, its prow smashing into the _Malta's_ remnants and pushing on inexorably toward the planet's surface.

"The first carrier completely ignored us, sir," Cortana remarked, and Hood nodded. "It blew through the Malta's debris field and headed straight for Earth."

"That means they don't consider us a threat," Hood responded, shaking his head. "In other words, that bomb . . . ." He trailed off as he noticed odd activity around the lead carrier.

Ahead of the vast warship, Hood could see a cloud of tiny lights and shapes, and along the hull a thousand explosions could be seen. The Admiral highlighted the carrier, and zoomed in, and cursed viciously as he understood what he was seeing. In front of the carrier was a vast force of Phantoms, the Covenant's choice for assault dropships, and the tiny detonations were the launching of orbital insertion pods, carrying Elite commandos as part of an initial strike force. As the Covenant ships pressed on, Hood knew what the aliens were planning, though he found it hard to believe that the enemy was this suicidal.

"They're _invading Earth_," he growled.

* * *

If there was one thing he hated, it was combat in zero gee. 

John heard Cortana's warning about the carrier bypassing the station as plasma cut past him in the void of hard vacuum. More Ranger Elites, in their blue environment suits, had been lurking on the external freight dock, one of them even setting up a mobile plasma cannon on the far side of the docking facility, on an elevated position.

Fortunately for the Spartan, Cortana was currently pumping MAC rounds into the Covenant fleet above the planet, which was causing the docking facility to rise and fall wildly as the Cairo's internal machinery worked to load shells into the cannon. The dock itself sat atop the loading machinery, which caused it to rise and fall with each blast; the UNSC's engineers had concluded that heavy freight transports wouldn't be docking with the station during combat in the first place.

An Elite keeled backward, purple blood flying out of its suit as the Master Chief's rifle broke through its shields. He dashed forward, the magnetic plates in his boots keeping him attached to the bouncing dock armatures as plasma ripped past. He ducked behind one of the docking clamps, structures the size of Scorpion battle tanks, and shot around on the outer edge of the dock before the Elite manning the cannon could spot him. John momentarily released the magnetic bonding, and leapt toward the wall beneath the Elite, twisting his body around so that his boots hit the wall. As soon as he connected, John reactivated the magnets and ran up the wall, reaching its lip. The Spartan found himself looking "down" at the Elite, who itself was crouched on the side of what seemed to be a sheer wall.

The alien had barely registered the Spartan's unorthodox flanking maneuver when it found itself staring down the barrel of the Master Chief's shotgun. The eight-gauge shell punched straight through shield, faceplate, and face, and the Ranger Elite was launched backward off the platform and into the starry void.

On the far end of the freight facility was the external elevator that connected to the Fire Control Room, with a single Ranger Elite standing watch just outside. In the vacuum, the sounds of combat had not been carried to the alien, though it had begun to note its comrades were no longer reporting in. The alien started to step away from the door when John dropped down toward it from above, sidearming a frag grenade off its front shields. The small bomb bounced off the Elite's shields and exploded, ripping apart its defenses long enough for two bursts from the Spartan's battle rifle to rip through its torso. Then, the Master Chief was past the dying alien and into the elevator.

"_Chief, be advised, there's a lot of Elites guarding the bomb,"_ Cortana's voice popped in over his radio as the elevator descended. _"Including what looks like an Ultra. You may need to get creative with this one."_

John frowned and brought up the schematic of the Control Room. There four Elites and a pair of grunts, and one of the larger aliens was tagged as the Ultra.

"Nothing I can't handle," the Spartan replied calmly.

* * *

"Commander, what news?" asked the one surviving Minor Sangheili, Asa 'Fetamee. The young warrior was fingering his plasma rifle anxiously, while the two Unggoy tending to the bob waited with equal trepidation. Rena 'Tantafee slowly reached up and tapped the side of his helmet, before shaking his head. The ocular projectors in his armor were showing him all the grim news he needed to know. 

"Our brothers have begun the Journey," he intoned quietly. "It appears that all but the Prophet's flagship and _Endless Vigilance_ have been destroyed by the human swarms, and we are all that remain on this accursed vermin station." he heard growls of anger and resignation from his fellow warriors, and the Ultra Commander turned toward the bomb they had brought inside.

"How long until the warhead detonates?" he asked.

"Two and one third units, Commander," replied Genta 'Venfamee, the Major who specialized in demolitions. 'Venfamee moved his hands between the long spikes on the bomb's surface, intended to allow it to stick into enemy hulls.

"Very well," 'Tantafee replied. "Our task is complete. Return to the transport and rejoin the Hierarch's army for the ground assault-"

"Commander!" shouted 'Fetamee. "The external elevator approaches!"

"The humans have finally come to destroy the rest of us," 'Tantafee growled, and ignited his blade. "Defensive positions! Protect the warhead at the cost of your lives!"

Even as he shouted that command, the door slid open, and a green-armored blur could be seen beyond. A blue white flare erupted, and Sangheili dove aside as the plasma grenade flew amongst them, sticking to the methane rig of one of the Unggoy. The small creature fell backward, panicking, and exploded, taking out both it and its companion, along with 'Fetamee's shields.

'Tantafee heard the rattle of metal on metal, and saw a small spherical object bounce off the bomb and right into 'Venfamee's face, before exploding in a shower of shrapnel.

The roar of a human rife could be heard, and then 'Fetamee and 'Venfamee fell to the deck, their helmets and throats perforated by precise bursts of gunfire. 'Tantafee caught sight of the attacker - a single foe - as it rushed into the room and ducked behind a crate.

"The Demon!" declared the Ultra, warning his last remaining comrade. The other Sangheili snarled and stepped out of cover, firing his plasma rifle as he moved forward.

"Commander, we must close and crush it!" he declared, and 'Tantafee was almost about to agree when the alien monster spun around the crate and leveled one of their nastier weapons, a shotgun, into the advancing Sangheili's face.

'Tantafee silently thanked his fellow warrior's sacrifice as he brought the Ultra the instant he needed to close. Even as the other surviving Sangheili was blasted apart by the shotgun, 'Tantafee's energy blade carved down, through the black metal of the ugly weapon, splitting it apart.

"I will smite you, Demon!" 'Tantafee roared as his blade arced across. The human monster dropped below the white arc of plasma, and shot forward, right arm snapping up in an elbow strike to the Ultra's face, while its left clamped over his sword wrist and held it tight. The armored monster bulled the Ultra backward, shoving him with shocking strength, all the while its empty, blank face stared into his eyes.

_This creature is not any weak human!_ 'Tantafee snarled and dug his hooves into the deck, metal screeching against metal boots. He began to push back against the impossibly strong beast.

"The . . . Forerunners . . . Bless me!" 'Tantafee snarled as he began to achieve parity with the Demon. His corded muscles strained, pushing against the beast's unnatural strength, and he began to drive it backward, mentally calling out praises to the ones who had gone before.

The monster's helmet loomed closer for an instant, and 'Tantafee reeled backward as the Demon's helmet crashed through his shield and into his face, cracking two mandibles. The Ultra lost his footing for and instant, and was launched backward. The creature's right hand released the Sangheili's left wrist and shot forward, closing around his throat, and then 'Tantafee felt his feet leave the deck.

An instant later something burst up through the Ultra's chest, piercing his armor and bursting out of his torso. 'Tantafee blinked, and found a pair of long spikes ripping through his chest, and realized what the Demon had done.

It had _impaled_ 'Tantafee on his own bomb's spikes.

_The Journey . . . _'Tantafee thought as he struggled to pull himself off the bomb, his arm shooting across and trying to cut the Demon where it stood. The alien leapt backward, deftly dodging away from his blade. The Ultra could feel the bomb pulsing, preparing to detonate, and knew he only needed to delay the Demon a few moments longer.

_My Journey,_ he thought stubbornly, understanding the breadth of his injuries. 'Tantafee surged forward, ripping himself off the bomb's spikes, clenching the energy blade tightly as purple blood poured down his ripped torso, indescribably pain arcing through his chest. He took one step forward, and saw himself staring down the barrel of the Demon's sidearm.

"My Journey _begi_-" he proclaimed, as the pistol kicked.

* * *

"Me, inside your head, _now._" 

John looked away from the dead Ultra and toward a small holotank, next to the bomb. Cortana's holographic figure could be shown, tapping her feet impatiently. Wordlessly, the Spartan holstered his sidearm and reached over, putting a hand over the tank's interface. A rapid feeling of ice water in his brain, followed by a sudden stab of mercury, filled his mind as Cortana uploaded directly into the Chief's armor through the interface in his gloves. He turned toward the bomb and threw aside the dead Ultra's corpse, and put his hand over the gleaming red control panel atop the spiked explosive.

The panel pulsed, and there was an electric chirping sound as the red light switched to a cool blue, and the bomb stopped in the middle of its arming sequence.

"How much time was left?" John asked.

"You _don't_ want to know."

John didn't respond; he'd been living his life on the edge so much recently that harrowing moments of near-death like this were the norm. Now that the battle for the Cairo MAC station was over, he could finally find a moment of peace. Still, it felt . . . Odd. Like he was still in the fight, and he couldn't lay down yet. There were no enemies remaining on the station, but the battle yet raged outside in the void of space. Though badly reduced, the Covenant fleet was still dangerous, and it killed him that he couldn't do anything about it at that point.

The station shuddered, and he looked toward the large bay windows that showed the outline of Earth, in time to catch the second Covenant assault carrier pass by, its massive form blotting out the outline of the planet for a moment, its shields flickering as it was assaulted from all directions by UNSC ships and Longswords.

After a moment, he opened a channel to FLEETCOM and listened to the chatter. The first words that he caught sent a plan spiraling through the Spartan's mind. It was what others would call insane, but if it _worked . . . ._

"_-are down! Repeat, sir, the second carrier's shields are down, we are in position for immediate assault!"_ Commander Miranda Keyes' voice could be heard. John could almost hear the anticipation in her voice, and frowned at her aggressiveness as he grasped the bomb's spikes. A UNSC frigate couldn't even begin to damage a massive Covenant carrier, even with its shields down.

"_Negative, Commander," _Admiral Hood's voice responded, agreeing with the Master Chief's assessment. _"You cannot take on a ship that size. Not on your own."_

"Admiral," John cut in. "Requesting permission to leave the station." As he spoke, he twisted the bomb around toward the elevator shaft. There was a Pelican bay just three decks below this one . . . .

"_For what purpose, Master Chief?"_ Hood replied immediately, his voice completely nonchalant, as if he was granting a request to enter the bridge.

"To give the Covenant back their bomb," John stated as he dragged the spiked explosive into the elevator. There was only a moment's hesitation on the other end.

"_Permission granted."_

* * *

"I know what you're thinking, and it's _crazy_." 

John grunted at the AI's admonishment as the elevator descended toward the Pelican bay.

"So, stay here," he replied.

"Unfortunately for us both, I _like_ crazy," Cortana retorted as the elevator came to a halt. The doors slid open into an empty hangar, and the Master Chief dragged the bomb out of the lift and into the chamber, the spikes grating along the metal deck as its slid. He moved inside, setting it beside a large strut in the middle of the chamber. He glanced outside at the battle raging beyond, where the few remaining UNSC ships were blasting the first carrier, and those that were near the second one were hastily moving away. He watched the second carrier, waiting for it get into position, knowing that he would only have one shot at this. A Seraph fighter shot past, chased by a pair of Longswords, and he saw his opening, the carrier's heading taking it at a perfect angle for what he had planned.

John opened a panel on the central strut, revealing a hand override for the airlock doors.

"Just one question," Cortana added as he wrapped his armored fingers around the handle of the release. "What if you miss?"

What if he did miss? Would he fly wildly out of control into the void, with no hope of rescue, like James? Crash through the atmosphere at terminal velocity, and smash into the planet's surface like Malcom? And if he even got on board the Covenant ship, would he then die at their hands, like Grace or Sam?

"I won't," John answered firmly, and pulled the handle down. The Spartan didn't have time to doubt or question; he only had time to _win._

The transparent doors to the bay slid open, and the pressurized chamber shuddered as air rushed out into the vacuum. John braced himself against the pillar, and watched as the bomb began to slowly inch across the deck, the spikes throwing up sparks as it grated against the metal. The Spartan watched and waited as the bomb started to speed up, moving faster and faster toward the open doorway, and the reached out, grabbing a spike an instant before it was lifted up off the floor and hurled out into the void.

Within moments, gravity began to do the work for him, and the bomb began to curve in its flight, descending toward Earth's surface, and toward the second carrier below. Beyond the second ship, the first carrier was dropping into the atmosphere, its shields glowing with the heat of entry as it descended toward the vast swath of Africa. He watched the carrier veer toward the eastern coastline of the continent, at the vast urban landscape of the East African Protectorate.

What did the Covenant want there?

As he thought, the second carrier began to shift its course slightly, and in response there was a flash on his HUD, followed by navigational markers.

"Rotate two degrees left and decline one point oh four and you should intercept, Chief," Cortana remarked inside his head. He mentally acknowledged her and shifted slightly in the zero gravity, altering his course the tiniest bit. A small port on the back of his armor opened, and he released a quick jet of the MJOLNIR's internal atmosphere, which helped correct his course directly for the carrier. The vast, nearly endless shape of the Covenant warship stretched out before him, slowly passing by as its vast form dropped toward the planet. with the shields down, he could plant this bomb against the ship's hull; the warhead would probably disable it, or at least damage it enough to allow the remaining ships nearby to finish it off.

He caught sight of something moving past the carrier, a UNSC cruiser, cutting between John and the carrier. For an instant, he wondered if the cruiser was blind, but as it passed between the Spartan and his target, he noted that nearly all of its weapons had been burned off, and Seraphs were even then ravaging its hull. The ship seemed barely mobile, much less able for combat.

"That's the _Hokkaido,"_ Cortana explained as the cruiser suddenly caught aflame, the carrier's point defense lasers ripping through the cruiser's hull as it cut past. "Most of the crew are dead or evacuated. I think Hood slaved the ship to another AI to cover us." John would have nodded, but he didn't want to shift the angle of the bomb anymore than necessary. They didn't want the deadly accurate Covenant point defense lasers to pick them out as an incoming threat.

"_Master Chief,"_ Lord Hood's voice cut in as the _Hokkaido_ began to break apart, its ailing engines burning out and fading. "_We need that carrier destroyed. We cannot afford to disable it."_

"Copy that," John replied, but frowned in confusion. As he watched, several Phantoms and Spirit dropships began to jet away from the carrier, and drop pods loaded with Elite commandoes began erupting from the hull.

"_The first carrier has dropped two division-sized Covenant invasion forces into the city of Momabsa from orbit, and its moving into a holding position over the city as we speak, no doubt to drop more. They're hitting us hard down there, and if we don't stop this carrier from offloading more troops into the city, we might not be able to hold. We cannot afford to simply knock it out."_

"Understood," John replied as the jeweled hull grew larger and larger. "How do I plant the warhead inside?"

"_Stand by."_

"_Spartan One-One-Seven, this is Wolf Two-Four, coming in on your six,"_ a new voice cut in. An instant later, two Longsword bombers swooped past, angling toward the carrier and its now expended point defense lasers. _"Opening the door for you. Provide BDA if you will, over."_ The two bombers dove toward the hull, and each of them released a pair of anti-ship missiles, which streaked toward the hull and exploded deep, ripping a wide gash in the carrier's hull.

"Wolf Two-Four, door is open, over," John called over his radio as the Longswords arced away, even as the Spartan began to plunge into the ravaged hull.

"_Have a better one, Spartan One-One-Seven,"_ Wolf Two-Four's pilot finished.

"Cortana, when I re-arm the warhead, I'll need you to push its clock back a few seconds," John continued as he and his cargo slid into the carrier. The expansive interior of the segment he had entered was dark and dim, and he believed he had entered some part of the carrier's power plant or reactor core, judging by a massive, gleaming purple structure in the center of the chamber, shining with a cold purple light.

"Naturally," she replied as he pulled himself forward on the bomb's spikes. The Spartan placed his glove over the control panel, and it switched from cool blue to angry red. The warhead thrummed in his grasp, and he pulled his legs in close, planting them against the bomb. His legs extended, and the Spartan augmentations and MJOLNIR's liquid crystal matrix launched him away from the explosive, toward the breach in the hull.

Seconds later, John was careening out of the carrier and was being tugged down toward earth's surface by the incessant pull of gravity.

There was no sound in space, so he didn't hear as the bomb detonated, tearing out the carrier's reactor core and setting off a vast array of blue-white detonations throughout the alien vessel, ripping it asunder in a cataclysm of shuddering azure flame.

As he plunged toward the planet's surface, feeling his job done, John closed his eyes and savored the silent moment of freefall.

Beneath him, the dark, small form of Miranda Keyes' frigate _In Amber Clad_ angled in, moving to intercept the Master Chief. He opened his eyes as he dropped toward it, and twisted around, presenting hit feet toward its hull. John's feet hit the deck, and the magnetic clamps in his boots activated, binding him to the _In Amber Clad's_ hull with a dull metallic _clang_.

"_For a brick, he flew pretty good!"_ came Sergeant Johnson's voice over the radio, followed by Commander Keyes'.

"_Chief, nearest airlock is forty three meters behind you. Get inside, gear up,"_ she ordered, as the frigate slowly turned toward Earth's surface. Below, he could see the East African Protectorate, and the vast city of Mombasa, visible from orbit.

It was easy to pick out, considering that it was on fire.

"_We're taking this fight to the surface."_

* * *

-

* * *

This one took a little while to get out, mostly because of the fleet battle, which I was mulling over how to accomplish. That and I've been waffling back and forth with some of my other stuff, particularly my FF fics too.

An issue that has been brought up with this chapter is the influence of gravity on some stuff, particularly when the Chief goes shooting out the airlock. I'm...rather in the dark about how gravity works depending on elevation, and was running on the assumption that if you're not in a stable orbit while over the planet's surface then you'd simply start falling. Combine this with a lack of points of reference in regards to time, and you've got my little hack job involving how John moved around in space. At least, when he was exiting the carrier, it made more sense with how gravity worked, considering that they are much closer to the planet by the time he got back out - close enough that when he reached In Amber Clad, you could see Mombasa on the surface.

As for the carrier and In Amber Clad, I've theorized that the MACs on frigates are vastly weaker than he MACs on cruisers, which really makes sense when you consider In Amber Clad is only about 470 meters long, compared with the 1.17 kilometer length of massive cruisers; they just won't have the reactor power or space to fit a massive MAC gun, especially when one takes into account IAC carries a dozen Warthogs, several Scorpions, and a number of Pelicans. And this is even if it _has_ a MAC; its designation is FFG-142, which , using proper Navy terminology, is a designation for a missile frigate. Add to this the fact that the carrier itself is _massive_; the last estimate I was able to get for it was at about seven kilometers long; an Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars is only _two_ kilometers long, by comparison. With that in mind, even if IAC had a MAC on board, there's no way its comparatively tiny weapon would do much good against the carrier, and if it fired any of its weapons it might catch unneeded attention from the carrier's gunners or Seraph escort.

Ah, well. Next chapter begins the awesomewin that is the Mombasa levels! Whoo!

Until next chapter...


End file.
